Ill Doctrine

I can't stop bloggin' today..hip hop is taking on racism in media, and hip hop philosopher Jay Smooth takes on racist comments vs. racism. ill Doctrine "is a hip-hop video blog hosted by Jay Smooth, creator of the hip hop music blog and founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad." You can find it at http://www.illdoctrine.com/

Hear what he has to say on responding to racist comments..



-sam smiley

Nas and Sly Fox

Wednesday July 23, 2008 outside Fox News in Manhattan
Photo courtesy of Racewire



The blogosphere is erupting with the delivery of over 600,000 signatures to Fox by protesters, and hip hop artist NAS to protest its representation of African Americans in its news delivery. You can read some stories on Alternet.


Nas's music video of Sly Fox (some great instances of Fair Use and media commentary thru images)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QstENh0xrHY






Selected lyrics from "Sly Fox" by Nas:

It's sly Fox, cyclops
We locked in an idiot box
The video slots broadcasting
Waco Dividian plots
They own YouTube, MySpace
When this ignorant shit going to stop?
They monopolize and lose your views
And the channel you choose

What's a fox characteristic?
Slick shit, sins in, misinformation
Pimp the station, over-stimulation
Reception, deception
Comcast digital Satan
The Fox has a bushy tale
And Bush tells lies and foxtrots
So, I don't know what's real (what's real)

Watch what you're watching
Fox keeps feeding us toxins
Stop sleeping
Start thinking outside of the box
And unplugged from the Matrix stopped you
But watch what you say, Fox Fire is watching

Only fox that I loved was the red one
Only black man that Fox love is
in jail or a dead one

Xenobia Bailey

Introducing the work of Xenobia Bailey. Born in 1955, her crochet'd sculptures and mandelas are in her own words "a utopian prototype for the aesthetic of funk". Her work will be at the Fuller Art Museum in August of 2008.

For more info about her work:

http://www.craftsreport.com/January03/profile.html

She is also an active blogger:

http://www.xenba.blogspot.com

-sam smiley

What's Wrong With this Picture?

Now from Time Magazine, August 2008. How to present a diverse group of people as a monolithic entity. Thanks to Jonathan Adams of Racewire for the lead. Comments? -sam smiley

Further reading:

The Myth of the Model Minority: Asian Americans Facing Racism  

by Rosalind Chou and Joe Feagin

Movie or Mosaic?

This is an interesting piece of software that takes a movie, averages it out, and puts it in a single image. I found the link on one of my favorite web sites, Information Esthetics

but you can go right to the source at http://www.threewordtitle.com/thumber/

-sam smiley