In no particular order (with replies from Naomi 94 in italics):

Get out of your liberal bubble and head into Harlem, or black areas of the Bronx and Brooklyn any weeknight after 11pm, you'll see more black kids ages 2 and up hanging out, getting cursed at, and witnessing all types of violence on a regular basis.

I can't help but wonder if you would have displayed this level of passion if the poor little girl was not cute.

what crime is this lady committing that you want the police dept to go investigate "preferable in unmarked cars"?!?! and if seeing this homeless child out in this streets at this time of night is so disturbing to you then why would you wait 4 a few weeks to see if anything has been done to post another video?

Some people should just not have kids , regardless of income , look at the hogans. You have a striking resemblence to Alizee the french pop singer.
naomi94 (7 hours ago) Reply
you know i have heard that before

you should take the baby and the mother into your home. Feed them, wash them and get them new clothes and call acs and wait for them to get there. by the way take subway ride from time to time there's plenty of people begging. oh yeah i'd love to see you on 145 and bradhurst at 10:30 11:00 pm on a friday or saturday.

Good for you, Naomi. I hope something beneficial will be done for the poor child. what happened to your left eye? I thought the ending will be that you fought that woman lol

Typical liberal yuppy, if you are so concern take the lady in and help her instead of going to one of the most yuppu restaurant in NYC. You also want to start a petition to complain about the captain and the way he runs things, remember he runs things the same way that lets u and your yuppy friends do yuppy things out in the open, try living your yuppy lifestyle 10 to 15 years ago, there would be more people like that girl on the streets that u so much care for but not in your neighborhood.

naomi94 (7 hours ago) Reply
oh shut up moron
you are just jealous that i can go to expensive, post manhattan restaurants and you are too broke to

Damn Yuppie!...Go back to France. The 13 pct probably has 3 cars working a night. So guess what a robbery or major crime takes precedence. the NYPD does not remove children from parents ACS does. Why dont you call them. Its not a crime to have your kid out late. Uncommon in NYC hahahaha U need to leave the nice area your in toots, this is common practice in the ghetto. You wanna help her...call ACS. This isnt a bust, as you called it. Its a referral to ACS

naomi94 (5 hours ago) Reply
you are such an idiot
i make a video about child abuse and all you do is call me a yuppie! that is funny
The fact is: you are jealous that i go to nice, posh restaurants, live a fabulous life, have lived in france..... and seen things that you can only dream about.
it isnt easy being jealous is it? :-)

Kind of makes you wonder what's going to happen, no? Just like on the TV! Except with real, you know, consequences.

[YouTube]

...says West's press secretary, Donna Brosemer: "I spoke with the FBI, and they said we were right to have alerted them."

See, West has to be extra careful because he brutalized some Iraqi in Iraq and the liberals wanted to court martial him. He escaped that, but now he is scared of what the Arabs might do to him within our own great homeland, possibly in concert with the liberals. NEVER FORGET.

Al Jazeera English confirmed they were trying to "interview" West, so no one was impersonating one of their staff and trying to trick West that way. But he still feels like he dodged a bullet, saying, "You know they are going to pull some tricks... I was not about to be a puppet for Al Jazeera."

West's district, by the way, is supposedly home to conservative pundits Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge and Ann Coulter. So you know where the killer pool parties are happening this summer.

[Daily News]

Here's the release we got on Wednesday:

[Alleged victim], a 25 year-old graduate student who lives in Manhattan was attacked yesterday (Tuesday, July 15th, 2008) at 8.30 P.M. outside of the 14th St.-Union Square subway station. ["Victim"], who was at the time listening to music with her iPod, was wearing a pink t-shirt bearing the slogan "Obama Is My Slave". Four African-American female teenagers approached her and one of them started to curse her because of her t-shirt, screaming at her, and then push her. ["Victim"], who was shocked, started to walk away from the group but was followed by the girls. The same one who cursed her, pulled her earphones and another girl spat on her face. ["Victim"] ran away from them and called the "[Bad designer]" store on [LES] where she had purchased her t-shirt and complained about the attack to the employee who was working in the shop at that time. The employee agreed to give ["victim"] the owner's, [bad designer's], cell phone number and the still shocked ["victim"] told him about the attack and informed him she was thinking of suing him "for all he's got". [Bad designer] in return told her that he was very sorry she had been attacked, but that she could not blame him because as he told her "No one made you buy the t-shirt". ["Victim"] said that she would come the following day and demand a refund for the t-shirt, which cost her $69. [Bad designer] told her that he doesn't give refunds because it is against his store policy. This made her even more agitated and she started to scream at him saying that he should be "ashamed of himself". [Bad designer] asked her for her phone number saying that he would speak to his lawyer and call her back. Yesterday at 10 PM when I, his publicist, called ["victim"] she was extremely upset and told me that she had spoken to her parents and decided to take [bad designer] to court.

* To speak with [alleged victim] about the incident, you can reach her at phone number: [redacted]
* To speak with [Bad designer] aka [prick], you can reach him at phone number: [redacted].
* A picture of [Bad designer] aka [prick] wearing the "Obama Is My Slave" t-shirt can be found at: [Hell]

Sincerely,

Lauren Levy
[Bad designer's] Publicist.

What's wrong with this picture? The guy is supposedly getting sued, and his own flack blasts out a press release with all the alleged dirty details, including the contact info of the girl who is supposedly suing him. Any reporter who's ever seen a press release related to a lawsuit knows that there's no way on earth one side will be happily passing out the other side's contact info and encouraging journalists to call them. And Metro says the "victim" didn't return any of their calls. Which didn't stop them from putting this on the front page.

There are only two possibilities: Either this whole thing is a hoax; or, the girl did get assaulted, and the bad designer and his creepy flack decided that this race-baiting was just the thing to get his face in the paper. Either way, what a bunch of scuzzballs.

Metro: you fools.

[Radar]

I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.

Rachel Sklar, who jumped on the story over at the Huffington Post, isn't buying it:

...it's got all the scare tactics and misinformation that has so far been used to derail Barack Obama's campaign — all in one handy illustration. Anyone who's tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who's tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism— well, here's your image.

Right, because if there's one source right-wing scaremongers love to cite, it's the New Yorker!

Jake Tapper of ABC News agrees with Sklar:

Knowing the liberal politics of the magazine, I believe the magazine's staff when they say the illustration is meant ironically, as a parody of the caricature some conservatives (and some supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.) are painting of the Obamas.

But it's still fairly incendiary, at least as these things go. I wonder what the reaction would be were it the Weekly Standard or the National Review putting such an illustration on their covers.

Intent factors into these matters, of course, but no Upper East Side liberal — no matter how superior they feel their intellect is — should assume that just because they're mocking such ridiculousness, the illustration won't feed into the same beast in emails and other media. It's a recruitment poster for the right-wing.

So participants in important political discussions, especially those who have loud voices by dint of talent, power or medium of publication, should tailor their self-expression in such a way that it can't possibly be misappropriated by extremists! Gee, that sounds familiar.

Well, this is the part in the campaign where we find out who among Barack Obama and his supporters truly do want to set aside the melodramatic hysterics that have cropped up around political dialog in this country over the past seven years, and who is instead destined to join the extreme right in opposing a long and proud American tradition of brazen free speech and rough-and-tumble dialog that have all too often been set aside in recent years in the name of sensitivity — patriotic or otherwise.

Or maybe I'm just touchy because these anti-French-defamation people weren't happy with my own caricature of stereotypes over the weekend. Whatever, talk amongst yourselves!

[Huffington Post]

Yes, of course! Throw the bums out for not spending money quickly enough! Damn this policy:

[LA Times, 23/6 via TV Newser]

Also, Michelle Obama used to babysit Jesse Jackson's son when he was a teenager. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING, etc.

Video of Jackson's comments, either above or via this YouTube:

Apology:

For any harm or hurt that this hot-mic conversation may have caused, I apologize. My support for Sen. Obama's campaign is wide, deep and unequivocal.

In case there was any doubt Fox News will be repeating this thing incessantly, O'Reilly played it three times in the first four minutes of his show.

Video of O'Reilly saying Fox is holding back footage of Jackson saying even worse things, and speculating that Jackson is scared of Obama winning because if he becomes president that will mean racism is over and Jackson will be out of a job:

These guys are such pros at the art of the smear. You just have to watch and learn: First the gossip and insinuation (as with the non-existent Michelle Obama "whitey" video), THEN the goods, which are totally optional since you can do plenty of damage with just the insinuation part.

"No disrespect to my man Barack, but I [bleeped] with John McCain. He greeted me like a god," Jeezy, who has endorsed Barack Obama, tells Vibe magazine. "The fact that he acknowledged me was crazy. I said, 'I'm Young Jeezy, and it's rough out here.' He blew me off at first. I was like, 'Nah, for real. It's rough out here, so what you gonna do to change it?' . . . And he gave me a look back, like, 'I know.' "

Now that McCain has the support of the drug trafficking industry, we may just have to vote for him!

If only Obama was better at race-baiting.

[P6]

(Audio via Politico)

Note also that Bernard says the Democratic presidential candidate's wife is "very different from Cindy McCain, very different from Laura Bush, very different, in her presence, from Hillary Clinton..." Gee, how is she different? I'm trying to think of some common difference from all these women and coming up blank! (Or, more accurately, blanco.)

Related: the Huffington Post reports that Hardball pulled the original promo for its Michelle Obama makeover show when it decided it was "inappropriate" to imply she's going to start wearing a high-cut miniskirt and stiletto heels. (Image at right.)

Under its editor, Franca Sozzani, Italian Vogue has gained a reputation for being more about art and ideas than commerce. Ms. Sozzani also doesn’t mind controversy.

She said that, as an Italian, she has been intrigued by the American presidential race and Mr. Obama, which was one source of inspiration when she and Mr. Meisel began discussing, in February, the idea of an all-black issue. Also, she was aware of the lack of diversity on the runways in recent years and the debate it fueled last fall in New York, where Bethann Hardison, a former model who ran a successful agency, held two panel discussions on the topic.

Ms. Sozzani said the issue was not a response to criticism that she, too, has under-represented blacks or portrayed them as stereotypes.

It all sounds very progressive, and is enough to make one long for the days when America was known for its optimism, and the Western Europeans, all too often, for xenophobic fear of immigrants, relative religious intolerance, and for being too cynically stuck in their ways to engage in genuine, constructive racial dialog. How the tables have turned.

[Times]

(Steven Meisel photo via Times)

I have spent the afternoon trying—with all the honesty and courage and humble introspection that is called for in this historic moment, with America poised to finally cast off its original sin and move into the full realization of those ringing words in the Declaration of Independence—to think about the terms black folks use when talking among themselves about white people.

I could barely move my pencil tip. Probably because black folks spend a lot less time talking or even thinking about white people than most white, right-wing reactionaries and their black counterparts dream in their hot little dreams. I had trouble, and, after hours and hours, the best I could come up with was this:

In totality, the list is: "White folks, white, white people, they." And in niche situations, mostly in the past: "Ofay, The Man, redneck, cracker."

Disgraceful, honestly. Our racist country deserves better.

[AP, Salon]

[News Of The World]

"Has he ever studied the history?" he asks, in that familiar near-whisper...

"He was complaining when I did Bird [the 1988 biopic of Charlie Parker]. Why would a white guy be doing that? I was the only guy who made it, that's why. He could have gone ahead and made it. Instead he was making something else." As for Flags of Our Fathers, he says, yes, there was a small detachment of black troops on Iwo Jima as a part of a munitions company, "but they didn't raise the flag. The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn't do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people'd go, 'This guy's lost his mind.' I mean, it's not accurate."

Lee shouldn't be demanding African-Americans in Eastwood's next picture, either. Changeling is set in Los Angeles during the Depression, before the city's make-up was changed by the large black influx. "What are you going to do, you gonna tell a fuckin' story about that?" he growls. "Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I'm not in that game. I'm playing it the way I read it historically, and that's the way it is. When I do a picture and it's 90% black, like Bird, I use 90% black people."

Eastwood pauses, deliberately - once it would have provided him with the beat in which to spit out his cheroot before flinging back his poncho - and offers a last word of advice to the most influential black director in American movies. "A guy like him should shut his face."

Knowing Lee and how much he hates confrontation, I'm sure he'll let these comments about "a guy like him" just slide right off, and this whole "controversy" will fizzle out quietly.

[Guardian]

To get the perspective of admitted political smear artist Roger Stone. In a neat demonstration of the media echo chamber, Stone said he hadn't heard of the purported video, but now believes it exists because so many TV news networks have called to ask him about it.

Host Geraldo Rivera said he'd bet $100 against the rumor being true, but it doesn't matter: If the Republicans can keep everyone talking about the rumor through October, when Johnson's "Republican sources" say it will surface, the chatter will have, in and of itself, hurt Obama in the same significant way spurious rumors about him being Islamic delivered votes to Clinton.

That right-wing, Roger Ailes-operated Fox News is helping to facilitate this damage via national television should come as no surprise; the real test is whether the other networks will now follow suit and further whip up this corrosive, baseless rumor, simply because there's nothing else they want to talk about.

[David Seaman]

[USA Today via Drudge, Balk, Fake Steve Jobs]

Anti-cop radicals [like] the New York Civil Liberties Union... won't be happy 'till every last cop is off the streets (and maybe behind bars)... If cops stand down, as critics demand, it'll be welcome back crime and chaos.

Blair wrote an account of his police incident for the Post in December.

After he was stopped and angrily asked if he spoke English, and after he threw back "No, no hablo ingles" and the officer briefly took him seriously, Blair was handcuffed and taken to a precinct house. There, he announced his affiliation with the Post, he said in a statement given to Editor & Publisher:

The only reason why I declared to these officers that I was a reporter for the New York Post, that I was a graduate of Columbia University, is because I wanted it to end. I should not have to pull on cards to be respected as an individual.

Saying he was with the Post proved to be sort of get-out-of-jail free card, he hinted in his writeup in the Post:

I unloaded: "I have a master's degree from Columbia University. I am a reporter for the New York Post. What do you mean this is not incarceration?"

The air froze. Officer Castillo kept writing, but I watched his face go flush.

"Now I understand what black people mean in this country when they talk about things like this," I said to Officer Reynolds.

"What do you mean? I am black, too," he said.

"That's what makes it so shameful," I said. "You stood there and watched him cuff me for no reason and you said nothing." He walked away.

At 9:04 p.m., 10 minutes after I was put in the cell, Officer Castillo let me out.

"Mr. Blair," he said. "You are free to go."

(Side note: Sheila, you totally should have tried this!)

The only charges brought against Blair by the police, making unreasonable noise and disobeying a lawful order, were dismissed by a judge.

The Post wears its pro-police bias as a badge of honor, and Blair's suit was, perhaps, an embarrassment. It's easy to imagine its editorial yesterday as something other than an accident, a way to cement the paper's relationship with the NYPD and rebuke its off-the-reservation reporter without breaking any labor laws.

Or it could just be another pro-police Post editorial. Not sure it even really matters.

[E&P, Post editorial, Post story]

(Photo by New York Post)

"I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts," the star of 'And God created woman' and 'Contempt' said.

Bardot has previously said France is being invaded by sheep-slaughtering Muslims and published a book attacking gays, immigrants and the unemployed, in which she also lamented the "Islamisation of France".

Thank God she demanded her singing not be used in my favorite Serge Gainsbourg song back in the 60s, because otherwise I'd have to now burn my iPod or something.

[Reuters]

Mark Anthony Neal, who is black and teaches black popular culture at Duke University, said: "There is suddenly a demand for smart Negroes. You’re seeing a lot less of the Jesse Jacksons and the Al Sharptons and more academics and thought-leaders. This is expressly in response to Barack Obama, less so Hillary. Because of the combination of Hillary and Barack, you’re seeing more black women."

What sorts of "smart negroes" are in demand? Young ones! That way, they sort of march Obama, or something. The "breakout stars" of this election, one journalism professor said, are all under 40: radio host Roland S. Martin, former Republican speechwriter Amy Holmes, and Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons.

"They bring such a fresh perspective that we are unaccustomed to hearing in the mainstream media,” said [the professor, Pamela Newkirk at New York University]. "Hopefully, the value of having different perspectives will be appreciated beyond this historic campaign."

The Times story is very thin on examples of the sort of fresh perspectives brought by minority and female cable news pundits, but it does offer this admittedly convincing example of a case where having a black commentator would be crucial:

"In the past week we have seen a distinct difference in commentary on Rev. Wright from people who have spent time in black churches and those who have not," said Gwen Ifill, a senior correspondent for "The Newshour With Jim Lehrer" on PBS and moderator of "Washington Week."

Times: Like the Candidates, TV’s Political Pundits Show Signs of Diversity

[via TVTattle]

[23/6]

"It devalues and patronizes the editorial board writers who wrote the original endorsements: an African-American, a Latino and two white women," wrote Reed, who'd been in her position since July. Oy. Now don't everyone go screaming at me at once, please. I'm well aware how lucky I am to have been born after the lion's share of slogging for workplace equality had been accomplished. Thanks predecessors! Really, thanks. And I've got an endless supply of outrage for prejudice in the office—it still exists and obviously could have been a factor in the Sun-Times sitch.

But it's hard not to point out that Reed's position itself is a bit patronizing. There's some discussion of whether Reed even knew who made the changes to her board's pieces, but she's accused publisher Cyrus Freidheim and shoe-fetishist editor Michael Cooke, among others. I'm not entirely convinced that a paper's editor and publisher shouldn't have a hand in what the paper supports, but that's just me. Rank-and-file newsroom editing of an edit board's endorsements is offensive by itself, if that's what happened.

Unless there was cause to believe discrimination played a part, Reed's bringing those issues into the mix also devalues her diverse staff, who ought to be seen as journalists first, and whose mandate to direct the Sun-Times' editorial affairs without interference should have been guaranteed and protected by the paper's overseers, regardless of their identities.

Shnayerson rant over, do carry on.

MR. RUSSERT: In New Hampshire, now, the famous scene in Portsmouth where you showed some emotion, was that exhaustion, frustration? What was it? SEN. CLINTON: No. It was actually, Tim, a moment of real emotional connection. Those of us who are running for office and holding office, I know it may be hard to believe, we're also human beings. And when I spend my time out on the campaign trail, it's usually about what I can do for somebody else. You know, I'm very other directed. I don't like talking about myself, I don't like, you know, sort of the, the whole atmosphere of how people, you know, are judged in American politics too often as to, you know, what you say instead of what you do. And so for me it's always about what can I do for you? How can I help you? And I was very touched when that woman said, "Well, how are you doing? How do you get up in the morning?" Because really, the question is for so many of the people that I meet, how does anybody get up in the morning?