The answer, of course, is simple:

IT'S RACIST!!!

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For Vanity Fair, a publication that reps a cosmopolitan city like New York, at the heart of the world's melting pot, and now finds the Obamas moving more units than pretty models, to have such a narrow commercial perspective on their website is disappointing. You shouldn't need Bono to force you to open up your worldview a little. But also, luckily, this is all very fixable! Nothing some tweaks and a new matrix can't get right. In fact we might be able to get started here.

Negropedia rummaged around in his knapsack then emerged with this:

We have about 30 sites on here. We lose the continuum of news/opinion — since most sites seem to offer a mix of both as a matter of course — in order to add a cultural continuum. Feel free to add tips, suggestions etc.. Next weekend we'll have the full updated clickable Blog Mela-Matrix.

Send hate-mail, crickets, tar feathers and the rest to my home base. And with that, I'm off to lick my wounds and nurture my page-view sensitivity with a tall refreshing girly-drink. XOX -TAN

It was only hours after Negropedia had declared Slate's Jody Rosen to be in need of hip hop autotuning. And the crowd disappeared as quickly as they had arrived once the case files fell off the front page of the blog where he stashed his evidence, but the dank smell of defeat lingered.

Perhaps humbled by the angry mob, Negropedia was still undaunted. He knew he was the best — in fact, only! — Ethnocultural Blog Detective in town. More important: He knew the stately town of Mediaville needed someone to solve these mysteries of ethnocultural dissonance.

See, Negropedia felt strongly that people's perspective and choices were inevitably informed by their ethnic/cultural background. And often in Mediaville, despite no obvious ill intent, there were weird mysteries of slights, misinterpretations, and lack of sympathy resulting from what Negropedia's father called "culture gaps".

Negropedia found it odd how the folks in Mediaville loved to talk about how technology was changing the town, but never about how the face of the population was changing as well. It seemed to him that as long as America was a melting pot, someone would need to watch over mixing the ingredients to make sure things didn't get salty.

Still, these cases were tricky. And people weren't always receptive to being called out in this manner. So he'd have to be on top of his game. Even he thought the casework on the last mystery was sloppy.

As Negropedia rode to his office, he noticed a cavalcade of cars streaming alongside him. And as he turned the corner of the block where his Astoria bodega office was located he noticed a throng of men in suits looking very serious in front of his door. Negropedia didn't need to be a boy-blog genius to know what Secret Service looked like. And just as Negropedia was about to ask what was going on, the crowd of uniformed men parted and out stepped the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

Negropedia immediately stood to attention and saluted his president, "Mr. President, sir, what brings you to this neck of the woods?"

Barack looked at Negropedia warmly. He paused, nurturing the moment with his poise:

"Negropedia, as you know, my father was a black man from Kenya. My mother a white lady from Kansas. I've run on the beaches in Hawaii, and shoveled snow in Chicago. I regard diversity in experience as the primary currency for a rich perspective."

Negropedia could feel his eyes welling from emotion. Obama always made him cry.

"You know, that I know, there isn't only one way. One color. One truth." Obama continued, "And I sought you out, here, in Astoria Queens, where Greeks and Arabs both fry falafel in peace, knowing that, neither will succeed if they bicker over who originally came up with the falafel. But both will have made the world a better place if they just make the falafel as best they can."

Negropedia listened intently, but was getting hungry.

"I came to seek you out because there is a mystery that I do not understand."

Negropedia was excited for the opportunity to get started on a new case. But business is business, and times were tough, so he pointed to his sign:

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Obama smiled a broad grin, his ears radiating charm. "Oh, of course I'm going to pay you." He fished around in his pockets and then flipped a quarter in the air.

"At your service, Mr. President." Negropedia declared. "What's the problem?"

The President pulled out a magazine he had been holding behind his back. Vanity Fair.

"I'm a fan of Vanity Fair, Negropedia. I consider it one of the pillars of America. The editor looks like George Washington, and it's one of the flagships of our biggest media institutions. I know the book itself can skew towards a certain demographic, so I went to their website, because that's where magazines keep their freshest most up-to-date content. And I've been feeling a little behind what with Iran, and the economy, and walking the dog..."

Negropedia nodded.

"So on their home page they have a technology section. And they offer a "Blogopticon" with this description:

Navigating the blogosphere can be trying, what with everyone from Al Roker to your Wiccan cousin out in New Mexico vying for the attention of the world's billion-plus Web surfers. In an effort to make some sense of it all, Vanity Fair has charted the most influential or amusing blogs about politics, gossip, Hollywood, media, and miscellany, and located them on two basic continuums: tone and content.

And I think, awesome! Because I agree, the internet can be totally overwhelming. But as I'm looking — and it's a very handy and functional charticle-thing — but I keep looking back and feeling as if something is missing. Like there's another continuum that should be incorporated in a service like this."

Negropedia took Obama's blackberry and looked at the matrix. He started rubbing the melanin on his elbows, he always did that when thinking at maximum capacity.

Barack was now pacing, "It being Father's Day weekend and all, I can't help but wonder if there are any internet sites out there that would speak to/from his perspective (bless him). I am a man of two worlds, after all. Perhaps since entering office I've taken the "politically correct" thing to heart, but I wonder from looking at this Blog Matrix if the internet is really just a World White Web?

Negropedia gasped at the phrasing, then returned to looking at the web page with his brow furrowed. He then looked the President in his eyes earnestly,

"No, Mr. President. You're right to ask me about this. And there's two words that will quickly solve this mystery."

WHAT WERE THE TWO WORDS NEGROPEDIA USED TO SOLVE THE CASE OF THE WORLD WHITE WEB????
(click/turn to "Page 91" for the answer to the Case of Vanity Fair and the World White Web)

It's so awesome when the media take a regular old term you use every day like "empathy" and decides it's Important. All of a sudden one innocuous word launches a million articles, blogs,etc. Sort of like when the Obamas said "yay" with their hands closed and knuckles touching, and everyone dropped their jaw in amazement. Fast forward a year: National Fistbump Day! For those interested, I've got my fingers crossed hoping "canoodle" is next to receive the treatment. Canoodling has important socio-political ethnocultural implications and demands exploring! (Immigrants are canoodling, sources say.) Next week!

Anyword, we present the Political Empathy Matrix with a sprinkling of this week's stories. This "Us" vs "Them" axis is the true litmus of an empathetic worldview. "Us" is inclusive, an invitation to all: Yes, Sonia, from the Bronx, be a justice on the high court with us! In contrast, Keith Olbermann, for example, champions an exclusive kind of liberalism. Not fit for the likes of the people who toil here in the tubes of this very website.

So there you go. Please connect the rest of my dots in the comments.

The Hipster-Sensibility "Sweet Spot" is in the ironic-alt quadrant, on the lower left. And you make a Z-trail that ends up in mainstream-sincerity. That's where a "hipster" is doing a lot of looking in the mirror, y'know, if they care or pay attention to items in that quadrant.

Yup, that feels about right. Corrections?

graphic by: Jeff Meininger

Last weekend's Morality Matrix was premised around the David Brook Philosophy 101 column about re-assessing moral value. This week we look at trendy micro-blogging platform, Twitter. Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher will serve as our polarizing avatars of highbrow and lowbrow. And we know within the democratized media-masses there's a thin line between the brilliance of sharing and the nausea of TMI-overshare. With those ground rules established we scatter-graphed some of this week's news to see what tweets and what twats.

Matrix design expertise provided by: Jeff Meininger

So, um, yeah, earlier this week David Brooks waxed Gladwellian while filling in for Bob Herbert with a column breathlessly headlined "End of Philosophy." But it was more about "Reassessing Morality." Or as he phrases "moral thinking." Whatever. He's quick to point out sometimes we just, like, blink, and make snap judgments:

Think of what happens when you put a new food into your mouth. You don't have to decide if it's disgusting. You just know.

Yessir, kind of like when you smell hot-ass bullshit in a column. You just know! But we digress. The Blink camouflage is just cover for his main point on our new moral sensibility:

What shapes moral emotions in the first place? The answer has long been evolution, but in recent years there's an increasing appreciation that evolution isn't just about competition. It's also about cooperation within groups. Like bees, humans have long lived or died based on their ability to divide labor, help each other and stand together in the face of common threats.

Oh, kind of like Gawker commenters and Jimmy Fallon? Word, I got you. Cooperation. So in sum, David is letting us know that Morality 3.101 is all about a blend of rational and emotional processing. And remaining open to this emotional side engenders a "warmer view of human nature" that is "nice" and suffices as a handy explanation for the "haphazard way we live our lives," dude. Awesome.

As a former bullshit artist philosophy major, my moral impulse is to look squinty-eyed in Mr. Brooks general direction, but I'm persuaded by his message of hope and cooperation. Unfortunately, it's all too much to fit in a Twitter. So now what do we do?

Well, I've long been a fan of NY Mag's Approval Matrix, and think it's an approach that can be translated for effectiveness beyond the approval of a niche agazine. For example, I once sent Gawker a Melanin Matrix to help determine cultural cachet.

Now, inspired by the Brooks column and the spirit of camaraderie, we've come up with a scatter-graph of recent news to give us some sense of perspective on this new Morality Matrix. On one axis we go from "Rational" to "Emotional." The other we go from "Selfish" to "Selfless." With any luck, Philosophy will get to one day live again.

Photoshop expertise provided by Mari.

[TAN's post-racial blog]