| Hip Hop's Influence on Social Welfare by Kinga Jakab
In today's hip-hop culture, it is beneficial to narrate the stories of those that cannot tell their stories - the people of poverty-stricken lifestyles. Rappers like Tupac Shakur (2Pac) and rap group Dead Prez declare that hip-hop culture and rap music will be around as long as poverty is around, because these cultures' stories have to be told. Ironically, anti-rap movements looking to ban rap music, namely gangster rap, are ignorant to these declarations as promises, and instead attempt to eliminate the middle man, hoping to abolish rap music via anti-violence movements, women's right and gay rights reminders, and the like. It is ignorance that fuels anti-rap movements, because the messages in rap music (passed on from generation to generation) are real and enlightening.
At 80, Benedict looks like he is coming of age
IF Pope Benedict XVI were still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he would be about to retire. Today, the white-haired German pontiff turns 80 - the age at which cardinals are put out to grass and told they can no longer take part in a conclave to elect a pope. .
Americans have become anime-ted
A young American girl sits in the neighborhood bubble-tea house, sipping her green tea on ice, chomping on tapioca balls. The mm-bop of J-pop surrounds her as she moves her head to the beat, mumbling along with the song, which she recognizes from a Japanese anime movie her parents recently brought home. She nibbles leftover sushi. .
Those Bawdy Bratz Babes By Janice Shaw Crouse
I recently bought a doll for my 6-year-old granddaughter. It was a really beautiful, expensive baby doll. She looked at the doll; then laid it aside. To her mother's dismay, she displayed socially-incorrect behavior by firmly announcing, “I'm sorry, but I'm way too old to play with that kind of doll." Little girls don't get to “mother" their pretend babies any more; instead, they act out today's young adult values with the more popular “fashion dolls." Bratz dolls, those ghetto cool, sexualized dolls with skimpy miniskirts, high-heel boots, pouty lips and ‘bad' attitude, are now the #1 doll in America, having pulled ahead of Barbie as the most popular fashion-doll in the United States. One writer explained that the dolls made little girls “sluts-in-training," another said they promoted “hooker chic" and another claimed that they promoted “precocious sexuality." MGA Entertainment, which manufactures the dolls, spent $15 billion last year marketing to children in the 70 countries where the doll is available.
GSN Orders New Series 'CAMOUFLAGE' From Disney's Buena Vista ...
GSN, the network for games, announced today that it has ordered 40 half-hour episodes of the new series, CAMOUFLAGE, an addictive hidden word puzzle and trivia game show from Disney's Buena Vista Productions. CAMOUFLAGE is the first collaboration between Buena Vista Productions and GSN. In making the announcement, Jamie Roberts, GSN's Senior Vice President of Programming, commented: "I couldn't be more thrilled than to be in business with Buena Vista Productions on this smart, playful, first-class game show. For viewers, CAMOUFLAGE is easy to follow and the type of show that pulls you in so that you can't help but play-along." Taping in Hollywood, CAMOUFLAGE is a fast-paced game show of hidden word puzzles with cross-word type clues ranging from general knowledge to pop culture.
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