allaboutgeorge

mymedia: hello
Gifford044: um hi
Gifford044: who is this
mymedia: we talked last thursday
mymedia: you asked me if i wanted to be your pet negroid
Gifford044: ok
mymedia: why'd you do that?

mymedia: again: why'd you do that?
Gifford044: ummmm goodbye
mymedia: so you're saying you weren't using this screen name thursday, and it wasn't you?
Gifford044: umm goodbye
mymedia: I'd just like an answer to the question, instead of evasion or denial.
Gifford044: shut up and leave me alone GOODBYE

"if im not back in 5 minutes...wait longer" *ace ventura*
"~!~!wherever you go, there you are" *mike brady~!~!*
"a good friend stabs you in the front" *cant hardley wait* haha michelle lol!~ bffl!!
"okay now lets try and get an answer from someone whos not a complete retard" *south park*
"if you dont got anything nice to say about anyone, come sit next to me" *roosevelt* michelle, we do that to much!~
"in the end, everything is a gag" *charlie chaplin* tell me about it!!
have a nice dayo! i wont bye bye!!~~!~!
"im not a slut....so stop flirting" *blair and michelle*
"ya know what??...sometimes i think you should put a condom on your head since if your gonna act like a dick you should dress like one too~!!"

Before you read up, get a laptop
Make a business for yourself, boy, set some goals
Make a fair diamond out of dusty coals

Attempts to revive cities around such things as casinos, football arenas at best create a kind of Potemkin City that provides a patina of prosperity against a backdrop of persistent and perhaps irreversible decline.

"It falls back to the sense of community that surrounds artists, which is with their cities. You are what you eat and what you are exposed to. In a creative community, social existence is very much part of the exchange of ideas -- the communities of a New York, L.A., London, and Sydney give exceptional opportunities for that. The role of cities is intellectual exchange. Only cities have the critical mass to make this kind of company a success. You need the closeness."

"People do not live together merely to be together. They live together to do something together."

Oakland, CA (94612). CURRENTLY as reported at Oakland, CA. Last updated Sunday, November 26, at 12:24 AM Pacific Standard Time ( 3:24 AM EST)
Haze
Temp: 45�F
Wind: From the North at 3 mph
Dewpoint: 45�F
Rel. Humidity: 100%
Visibility: 2 miles
Barometer: - inches and falling
Sunrise: 7:01 am
Sunset:
4:51 pm

Globalization sucks ... lattes through a Starbucks straw in Beijing's Forbidden City.

If art is a crime ... may G-d forgive the French government.

Now that we've no cable TV, I must be missing all the cool car commercials.

It's in a darkened corner of the gallery. On the floor, there are Asian-language newspapers and a boombox playing a tape of what sounds like an English-language class for foreign students. On the walls, an array of wooden cards that look like outsize Scrabble tiles read (cleverly) up to down and right to left and spell out a snippet of dialogue from the class.

So of course, I shouldn't have been surprised to run into the installation's creator, a young woman named Tomoko Negishi, fiddling with a slide projector nearby. In complementing her on the piece, she talked about some of the issues that led her to create it: her sense of Western culture's reluctance to meet and treat Eastern culture fairly, for one. And I should have been even less surprised to find out she was a friend of Delia Nakayama's.

Gifford044: wanna be my pet negroid?
mymedia: sorry, already taken.
Gifford044: i soe
mymedia: but i'm fresh out of ignorant assholes. wanna apply?

What is your favorite word? Morning (as spoken by The Wife)

What is your least favorite word? The N-word.

What turns you on? Intelligence. A sense of humor. Direct eye contact.

What turns you off? A dearth of the aforementioned qualities.

What sound do you love? I can't describe it here.

What sound do you hate? The quick downward-spiraling beep of my Ricochet modem dropping its connection.

What is your favorite curse word? When I drove more regularly and people cut me off on the freeway, it was "dickless motherfucker."

What profession other than yours would you like to attempt? Private investigations.

What profession would you not like to participate in? For now, politics.

If Heaven exists [it does] what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? I need a favor -- can you cover my shift next millennium?

Midway through our lunch, we noticed an older white woman heading straight for our table saying, "Ooh�" In my experience, old white women coming at me saying anything that begins with "ooh" means that nothing good will follow. It turned out that she was coming to assure George, the other black man in our group, and me that we "really are human beings," and that she had a great time living among us in London�s Brixton. She gave my hand a two-handed shake for emphasis at every sentence. George was surprisingly gracious, that is until she started rubbing his head. There are many reasons that people have been known to rub black folks' heads �� for good luck, to see what black hair feels like, to see if it really gets wet. None of them is a good reason."

A fast-talking 21-year-old in baggy jeans, oversized jacket and back-to-front baseball cap is attacking the Israeli government -- in rhyme.

He calls himself TN, and he's Israel's only Arab rapper.

Tamer Nafar, from the slums of Israel's mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lod, says he has even more reason to hate his government after weeks of Israeli-Palestinian violence that has killed more than 200 people, nearly 90 percent of them Arabs.

"Are they still protesting? I though they'd all been offed," Nafar told Reuters in an interview, referring to Palestinians.

"I feel for them. I feel the attack against me and my people and I have something to say. I write it in rhymes and I do it in rap. Some guys burn tires, some shoot guns -- this is my way."

Nafar, who grew up in Lod's urban squalor "in shacks, like everyone," has stopped following news of the violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (news - web sites) that spilled over into Arab cities in Israel proper in the first weeks after it began late last month.

Thirteen Israeli Arabs were shot dead during violent demonstrations of solidarity with their Palestinian brethren.

"It kills me. It leads me to hate the government even more, since the (protesters) are fighting for us and for what belongs to us," he said. "Still, I don't know exactly where I fit in. "I know (the Palestinians) are aggressive, but they've suffered for years under Israel. And the bottom line to us and to them is the same -- death to the Arabs."

Arab citizens of Israel, some 19 percent of the population, complain of racism and institutionalized discrimination.

"Yo, whassup, I'm Tamer Nafar, TN the untouchable. You can call me the crimefighter. I'm sick of all these mother f+++++n' drug dealers. I wake up without a mood, see I live in a rough 'hood, a tough 'hood named Lod," TN sings in English.

Nafar, who picked up Afro-American slang by reading subtitled Spike Lee movies, released his first single in English but now raps mainly in Hebrew for the benefit of the Israeli bourgeoisie who see his act in the clubs of north Tel Aviv. He made the switch "so the people understand, so the occupation itself will understand. The message is that the minority is opening its mouth."

Full disclosure: Figured it was going to be a chick flick -- hotties like Alfre Woodward, Joan Chen, Mercedes Ruehl, Julianna Margulies, Kyra Sedgwick; "Bhaji on the Beach" director Gurindher Chadha at the helm; a heartwarming "holiday" focus and many soft-focus "Soul Food" stylee cooking-porn -- but no, the damn thing had to go and confound most of my expectations.

Take the opening shot (please!): To the tune of "America the Beautiful," you see a picture of this stereotypical 50s-type Anglo family gathered 'round a turkey. Then the camera pulls back and you see it's an ad affixed to the side of a city bus. Said vehicle is full of all kinds o' folk: black, white, Puerto Rican, everybody just a-freakin'. A couple of street signs glimpsed here and there, a few more shots of workaday, unglamoured ethnicities and you realize you're in El Lay, the cit-tay of "Catfish in Black Bean Sauce" (another tight, multiculti-savvy flick likely not coming to a theater near you -- but maybe a quality video store if you ask nicely) and not, say, "Grand Canyon."

More to come on this later, 'cause it was so enjoyable ... as opposed to a poster ad for Disney's latest piece of ethnicized, exoticized animated crap. If it takes place in a fictional "mythical mountain kingdom," why must its creators turn the lead character into a freakin' llama? Why not go whole hog, make it a fictional animal and leave Peruvian/Andean fauna out of it?

While I'm on a roll, I'm tired of seeing Samuel Jackson -- this Mystical, Majestical Coon thing is really going around Hollywood; try not to catch it! -- claim that a literal trainload of people have to die so Bruce Willis can finally get to the bottom of his "Unbreakable"-ness.

Lastly, two to avoid: Nicolas Cage as an investment banker who trades in a girlfriend and sports car (thanks to a handy-dandy Plot Twiste some screenwriter acquired at Ye Olde Twilight Zone Trading Post) for a wife and minivan in "The Family Man" and Mel Gibson as a chauvinist (there's a stretch) who (courtesy of an accident -- yeah, his screenwriter slipped on a puddle of melting Plot Twistes in the Trading Post and hit his head something awful) is given the ability to hear women's thoughts in "What Women Want."

The Duval County ballot listed Mr. Gore on the first page, along with Mr. Bush, Ralph Nader and two other candidates. Then on the second page were the names of five other presidential candidates. After voting for Mr. Gore, many Democratic voters turned the page and voted for one of the remaining names, Mr. Gregory said.

The double-marked ballots substantially affected Mr. Gore's showing, a Times analysis of voting data suggests. More than 20 percent of the votes cast in predominantly African-American precincts were tossed out, nearly triple the majority white precincts. In two largely African-American precincts, nearly one-third of the ballots were invalidated.

Altogether, 21,942 ballots were rejected because the voter punched the hole beside the name of more than one candidate, and another 4,927 were invalidated because the voter punched no hole next to a presidential candidate, said the Duval County supervisor of elections.

Names turned down included .geo, .web and .kids, which the board said could lead to sites with content harmful rather than beneficial for children."

Black Diamonds parties, like the weekly after-work mixer at Aubette, on East 27th Street, are designed for the African-American elite, culled from carefully screened databases. The list of invitees � about 10,000 of the young black bourgeoisie in New York, Chicago and Washington � is Black Diamond's bread and butter.

The founders use the list to set up networking events, dance parties, and other social gatherings, e-mailing invitations to clients at least once a week. In a questionable move, (italics mine) they have also begun to sell the list to companies seeking the attention of wealthy black consumers, at 20 cents a pop. There is no denying a certain haughtiness associated with the Black Diamonds list. Pamela A. Pickens, 33, the company's president, and Derek K. Corley, 35, the vice president, describe their clients as "quality people." "It's a person who has money; a positive, forward- thinking person who can get things done," Mr. Corley said. The company focuses on African-Americans from 21 to 40, with an average income of about $45,000 and a college degree.

"You have to be upwardly mobile and exhibit a certain class, a certain way of being that's sort of mainstream and dignified, and a way that's not going to create fear in people," Ms. Pickens explained. "But it's not income driven. Would we say someone who volunteers for the Peace Corps with a heart good as gold 'we won't take you'? No. We have standards, but it's not elitist in that way. It has more to do with your intellectual experience than your income level."

The Black Diamonds profile reflects a segment of the population that was long overlooked by event promoters and corporate marketers. For a long time, Ms. Pickens said, it was difficult to find groups of upwardly mobile African-Americans anywhere in New York, because clubs and bars were wary of holding any party for black people under 40. But now, Black Diamonds is just one of several promotional groups that concentrate on African-American professionals. And companies have become increasingly interested in reaching their clients.

Often when people are suffering a legacy of deprivation, there is a sense that there are never any goodies to go around, so that we must viciously compete with one another. Again this spirit of competition creates conflict and divisiveness. In a larger social context, competition between black men and women has surfaced around the issue of whether black female writers are receiving more attention than black male writers. Rarely does anyone point to the reality that only a minority of black women writers are receiving public accolades. Yet the myth that black women who succeed are taking something away from black men continues to permeate black psyches and inform how we as black women and men respond to one another. Since capitalism is rooted in unequal distribution of resources, it is not surprising that we as black women and man find ourselves in situations of competition and conflict.

C.W.: It is important to note the degree to which black people in particular, and progressive people in general, are alienated and estranged from communities which would sustain and support us. We are often homeless. Our struggles against a sense of nothingness and attempts to reduce us to nothing are ongoing. We confront regularly the question: "Where can I find a sense of home?" That sense of home can only be found in our construction of those communities of resistance bell talks about and the solidarity we can experience within them. Renewal comes through participating in community. That is the reason so many folks continue to go to church. In religious experience they find a sense of renewal, a sense of home. In community one can feel that we are moving forward, that struggle can be sustained.

And then West dropped this particular pearl, which I thought somebody might find useful. Or maybe it just hit me in my third eye or wherever it was s'posed to hit me:

(As we go forward as black progressives,) we must remember that community is not about homogeneity. Homogeneity is dogmatic imposition, pushing your way of life, your way of doing things onto somebody else. That is not what we mean by community. Dogmatic insistence that everybody think and act alike causes rifts among us, destroying the possibility of community. That sense of home that we are talking about and searching for is a place where we can find compassion, recognition of differences, of the importance of diversity, of our individual uniqueness.

"Some people tell me my vote cost Gore the election, but I reject that argument," said Holly Hutchinson, 42, a museum worker. "It's arrogant. I didn't vote for George Bush. I voted for greater democracy. I voted for taking immediate steps to end the crisis of the environment and the corporate dominance of our government and culture."

After President Clinton ticked off the states, including Florida, where Nader was hurting Gore, Brown's husband, Harry Evans, exclaimed: "I want to kill Nader!"

"That's not a bad idea!" Sen.-elect Clinton replied with a big grin -- immediately followed by a collective cry of "That's off the record!"

... comes around.

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., greeted her election tartly.

I tell you one thing, when this Hillary gets to the Senate -- if she does, maybe lightning will strike and she won't -- she will be one of 100 and we won't let her forget it,'' he said."

"You've got to peel off the layers, one by one, that's what writing's about," she says, holding up an inch of air in her fingers. "Getting to the core. Sometimes you don't want to, you want to stay warm. It's not easy getting used to freedom, you know. We're not trained that way."

"Dade County Republicans have a very specific expertise in getting out absentee ballots," he said. "I obviously have specific experience in this myself." XAVIER SUAREZ, former Miami mayoral candidate and current Miami-Dade GOP executive committee member, on filling out absentee ballots in advance of this year's election

And the response:

When told of this, Kendall Coffee, lead attorney in the original Suarez suit, said, "He said that?" Coffee, a recognized expert in absentee ballot law, added, "This is striking. Florida has a troubled history in absentee ballots. Republicans often tell voters that they can use absentee ballots if it is more convenient for them, but the law requires that there must be an inability or barrier to voting in person."

Coffee went on to say that Suarez�s participation in any part of enlisting absentee ballots troubled him deeply. "Suarez was found to have taken part in systematic and massive absentee ballot fraud. He was found to have done significantly better in absentee balloting than in the general vote." He went on to say that since that time, while some improvements have been made, "no one watchdogs absentee balloting, other than the campaigns themselves. The election commission has no authority to oversee the distribution of coordination of absentee ballots until they are counted."

"These ballots are going to decide the outcome of the closest race in a generation and, given Suarez�s and this state�s murky history with regard to absentee balloting, this calls for meticulous and vigorous investigation."

Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Florida, says 19,000 votes in Palm Beach County have been disqualified because of a faulty ballot. His charge comes as Florida recounts votes cast during Tuesday's election to decide the next president of the United States.

Both presidential candidates, Vice President Al Gore and Texas Gov. George W. Bush, are waiting to learn the results of the Florida recount. The candidate who wins Florida is expected to win the U.S. presidency.

With 21 counties reporting their recount early Thursday, Gore gained 642 votes and Bush added
144. The new count in Florida was 2,909,404 for Bush and 2,908,126 for Gore -- a difference of 1,278 votes.

Officials at the Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor's office could not be reached for comment on Wexler's remarks, nor could officials at the Florida Division of Elections.

At a news conference on Wednesday, Wexler said those 19,000 ballots were double-punched and "disqualified because they voted twice."

He said the greatest concentration of those double-punched votes came from African-American communities, and he charged that 15 percent of the black vote in the county was disqualified.

NAACP to Bush campaign: Fraudulent calls suck. Cut it out!

Let's wait a few years and see if the kid can act AND dance ...

For those of you who thought drug busts were all about the drugs.

The feds had better not go and screw this case up.

Another show I wish I'd been to see.

No guru, no DJ Headliner, no Dionne Farris: Wake me when they go double-linoleum.

Speaking of which: now more than ever, Mama's always on stage. Thank you. That is all.

Another show I wish I'd been to, but I was pinned down by incoming stories. Don't cry for me, Al and Dubya ...

See if you can spot the "Play"ed out DJ who's feeling full of himself 'cause he sold well his last time out.

A Democratic Party supporter? Now there's a Chaka ...

Speaking in Seattle at a conference on using computers to help the Third World, Gates said he still had faith in the ideal that technology could bring about a better world, but added that he doubted that computers - or global capitalism - could solve the most immediate catastrophes facing the world's poorest people.

People who thought that developing countries could benefit from the e-economy had no idea what it meant to live on $1 a day with no electricity, said Gates. 'You're just buying food; you're trying to stay alive.'

The billionaire technologist became positively vitriolic about the idea of using computers in the Third World: 'Mothers are going to walk right up to that computer and say, "My children are dying, what can you do?" They're not going to sit there and, like, browse eBay or something.

'What they want is for their children to live. Do you really have to put in computers to figure that out?'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With efforts to get out the vote in full swing ahead of Tuesday's election, activists hoping to rally minority communities face a legal roadblock -- 13 percent of black men have lost the right to vote because of incarceration or past felony convictions.

In Alabama and Florida, one study found, the total is as high as one in three.

"About 1.8 million men are disenfranchised within the African-American community,'' said Keenan Keller, minority counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, where a bill to extend voting rights to ex-offenders has languished for more than a year.

In certain swing states, the number of folks who are disenfranchised could actually have a direct impact on the election," he said, adding that because of aggressive policing linked to the war on drugs the impact on future elections could be great.

You have the situation where juveniles can lose the right to vote before they even get it," he said.

The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C., organization that promotes alternative sentencing programs, reports that in 47 states and the District of Columbia, all convicted adults in prison are denied voting rights while they are incarcerated. Thirty two states also deny paroled felons the right to vote, 29 deny felons on probation the vote, and in 13 states ex-offenders lose their voting rights for life.

Only Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts allow prisoners convicted of felonies to vote. But that right is on the ballot in Massachusetts on Tuesday when voters will be asked to decide whether to disenfranchise prisoners in that state.

Laws Based On Civil Death

Laws denying criminals the right to vote have been on the books in the United States for 200 years. They are based on the belief that those who break the law should suffer "civil death" and forfeit some rights.

Roger Clegg, general counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Equal Opportunity, has testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the issue. He said there are good reasons why the criminal disenfranchisement law should be maintained.

The basic point is that somebody who is not willing to follow the law should not have a role in making the laws for everyone else. That's what you're doing when you vote,'' Clegg said in a telephone interview.

There has to be some sort of minimum threshold of trustworthiness or loyalty an individual must have before they have a role in running the government."

But those advocating a change say the old "civil death" laws could not have envisioned a society in which millions of people -- convicted of crimes ranging from murder to non-violent theft -- lose their right to vote. They say once a criminal has served their sentence they should be free to participate in the political process.

Like the dark days of segregation, when laws were manufactured to keep blacks out of the voting booth, some today are reviewing the rules governing voting rights for felons to see whether they disproportionately affect the African-American community and muzzle its political voice.

In all, 4.2 million Americans -- either current prison inmates or ex-offenders -- are not allowed to vote. Of those, more than one third are black, according to The Sentencing Project. That amounts to 13 percent of all black men.

We estimate in our report that for black males born today, in the most restrictive states, 30 to 40 percent of them will lose their voting rights at some point in their life," said Mark Mauer, the group's assistant director.

In 1998, The Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch looked at the extent of criminal disenfranchisement and found that in Alabama and Florida, 31 percent of all black men were permanently disenfranchised.

In five other states -- Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia and Wyoming -- one in four black men were permanently disenfranchised, and in Texas one in five black men had lost the right to vote.

In September, The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University's School of Law filed suit in federal court in Florida challenging the constitutionality of the state's permanent disenfranchisement of ex-felons.

Nancy Northup, director of The Brennan Center's Democracy Program and lead attorney in the case, said the state's law is designed to discriminate against African Americans.

It violates the Voting Rights Act because it continues to discriminate against African American voters," she said.

Ace's "How Long Has This Been Going On": Yeah, sappy, I know. I don't care.

Artful Dodger's "Rewind" and his remix of Sisqo's "Thong Song": Garage, 2-step or whatever they're calling this stuff probably sounds lovely when cranked up loud as fuck.

Arto Lindsay's cover of Al Green's "Simply Beautiful": A sweet, good-humored take, not so much interested in doing it justice as having fun (and that's ... all right wit' me)

Belle and Sebastian's "Seeing Other People" and "Like Dylan in the Movies": The tracks I spun most regularly off "If You're Feeling Sinister"

Bjork's "Joga": What's that young pianist fella, Jason Moran, doing puttin' a cover of this on his album? And am I going to have to cruise the listening booths at Virgin Mega to find out in full?

Brand New Heavies' "Never Stop": Danced both my asscheeks off during this band's live show on an evening's cruise along the Potomac many moons ago.

Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town": Sweet ol' 80's pop tune.

Green Velvet's "Answering Machine": My brother Erin played it for me.

Isley Brothers' "Footsteps in the Dark" and "Harvest for the World": Love, love, love those tracks. Already have their takes on Todd Rundgren's "Hello It's Me," James Taylor's "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight" and Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay" so these were nice to find.

LTJ Bukem's remix of Jodeci's "Feenin'": Barely any K-Ci or JoJo in there; just disembodied snippets in a breakbeat breeze, without respect to the O.G. song structure.

Lou Rawls' "Lady Love" and "You'll Never Find (Another Love Like Mine)": Good, good memories of these songs on the radio. When I was a kid, I would harmonize along in my deepest voice.

Massive Attack's "Protection": That deathless riff from James Brown's "The Big Payback" never sounded less vengeful, or more warm, oceanic and amniotic once Tracey Thorn and the boys hooked it up lovely.

Miles Davis' "Someday My Prince Will Come" and "Kind of Blue": The former batted leadoff on my driving-out-of-the-ANG-parking-lot-and-pulling-onto-580 tape for a good while. The latter may have been on there, too.

O'Jays' "Backstabbers": I owe Cecily for this, 'cause her hearing it on SonicNet a couple of weeks ago spurred me to find it and spend the next hour or so afterward, mutterin' "What they doin'!" to myself.

Steely Dan's "Black Cow" and "Babylon Sisters": Not my fave tracks off "Aja" and "Gaucho" -- those would probably be "Home at Last" or "Peg," and "Glamour Profession" or "Hey 19" -- but they're in the running.

Stephanie Mills' "Never Knew Love Like This Before": Sweet, boyhood memories of trampolining on the bed at home and listening to WKYS-FM on the radio.

St. Germain's "Alabama Blues": Uptempo bluesy lyric, grafted onto a throbbing sizzler of a house track. I can see why Simon Reynolds -- whose site I was poring over last night for 2-step songs and other background info -- was so underwhelmed by Moby now.

Armand Van Helden's remix of Sneaker Pimps' "Spin Spin Sugar": Heard this first on Live 105's "Subsonic" with Aaron Axelson.

The Roots' "You Got Me": I get all teary when the drum 'n' bass drops in, even before enjoying the hard relationship realities Black Thought and Eve kick and the soft, saccharine, sentimental aftertaste of the music.

Kurt Elling and Cassandra Wilson's version of "Time of the Season": A little overblown and slowed-down, but I like her. I need to find a couple more by him; he has a talent and maybe he'll grow on me.

Tortoise's "DJed," "In Sarah, Mencken, Christ and Blue," "Jetty" the Nobukazu remix of "TNT" and the "Suspension Bridge" song: I must cave in and get the CDs, which were purchased but then were scratched or accidentally destroyed.

U2's "The Sweetest Thing," "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," "Stateless" and "Beautiful Day": Good stuff all around.

Vicious Pink's "8:15 to Nowhere" and "Great Balls of Fire" : Obscure 80's fun, but don't blame it on my youth -- blame it on a friend of mine's ...

This list was brought to you in response to Ms. Avoirdupois' movie rental list.

The loser factor: This dude's piece alludes to how there's nobody he can feel superior to in hip-hop 'cause everyone's bling-blingin', throwin' dollar bills everywhere, spinning diamond-encrusted Rolexes around on their wrists like propellers and making tattoos do the boogaloo by flexin' muscled pecs. He hasn't been payin' attention -- saying rap videos first showed up on MTV in '96 is not your (or my) first clue to that. It's how he's never heard of P.M. Dawn, Basehead or Arrested Development; didn't think to name-check the Native Tongue posse (the usual suspects most likely to be rounded up for cool-white-boy hip-hop fans' referrals); and only stops at Eminem without going all the way to Elvis (and coolly noting how Dr. Dre's going to go down as hip-hop's Col. Sam Phillips -- just for the record, yo, what would a posse cut with Marshall Mathers, Snoop Dogg, Dre and Aftermath Records' newest signee, Rakim, sound like? Picture that ...). But, like, don't get me started on people who can't "hear," 'cause we could be here forever.

(both links courtesy Robot Wisdom)