Royal Racism: Prince Charles Gets A Pass

It's not easy being prince. The unfortunate racial "isms" that other people get to make in private have a way of being put on blast when you're heir to the throne. The word on Fleet Street is that Prince Charles used a racial slur against a member of his polo club.

Polo club. Right.

This coming after his son, Prince Harry, having been outed for using the slur "Paki" to describe one of his military mates.

Kolin Dhillon, an immigrant to Britain from Punjab and a member of the exclusive Cirencester Park Polo Club, was apparently referred to as "Sooty" by both Charles and other members of the club.

However, knowing which side his crumpet is buttered on, Dhillon says he sees no racism in the crack. "I enjoy being called Sooty by my friends who I am sure universally use the name as a term of affection with no offence meant or felt," he says.

Really, who doesn't like having the color of his skin mocked by elite polo-playing colonialists? When my plantation owner calls me "monkey face" I just roll on the floor with laughter.

You know, here's the thing. Even if Mr. Dhillon doesn't take offense at the remark — and I take him at his word — the prince ought to know better than to reduce a person to the color of his skin (as opposed to, say, the content of his character). Especially when that individual is one of a few within an exclusive group. When we read about young Prince Harry using slurs and wonder where he gets it from ...

Well, even royal apples don't fall far from their tree.

11:56 AM ET | 01-14-2009 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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Truth In Fiction: Remembering Donald Westlake

Writer Donald Westlake, seen n 2002, died New Year's Eve.

Scott Gries/Getty Images

Happy New Year to you all.

I'd planned on my first entry of the new year being something light and easy. More Crappy iPhone Pix of Cool Stuff. But I would be very, very remiss in not noting the passing of writer Donald Westlake.

The very first interview I did for NPR, in fact before I was even working for NPR in any official capacity, was with Westlake. One of the nuggets he imparted on me was that he always "regretted" calling his seminal anti-hero Parker. It precluded him from including in any of the Parker novels the simple sentence "Parker parked the car."

Of course, nothing kept Westlake — or Richard Stark, his most famous of several nom de plumes — from being one of America's best authors of hard-boiled fiction. What made Westlake's writing so compelling was his devotion to the consistency of human nature. That is, he was more concerned with his characters ultimately being true to themselves than being likeable. ("Likeability" is one of the most overused reductions of editors and executives in entertainment.)

What made Westlake great was his ability to mine the emotions of his characters as they performed hard acts.

One of my favorite Westlake books is The Ax. It's the story of Burke Devore, a middle-aged, middle-class husband and father who gets "the ax" from his job, and the lengths he will go to to get a new one. Few writers could make the reprehensible actions of a protagonist so emotionally resonant. But Devore's story is an allegory for the fears of every family man. As such, whether we like his actions or not, we understand them and are with Devore every step of the way. And Westlake took Devore all the way.

But Westlake knew that he could deliver on a story without having to sell out his character in the end. That gave his writing a palpable confidence — a literary muscularity that to me is missing from much of modern American literature.

All the more so with the passing of Mr. Westlake.

12:13 PM ET | 01- 5-2009 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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The Top 'Non-Troversies' Of 2008

A 'New Yorker' cover from July sparked heated debates, but not much else.

Chris Hondros/Getty Images

They seemed so important at the time, didn't they? The issues over which much ink was spilled, many talking heads blathered, and, in some cases, congressional committees were convened. But as we prepare to turn the calendar page, what seemed monumental then has all the significance of a Dennis Kucinich stump speech in retrospect.

So before they completely fade from memory, let's take a look back on some of the top "non-troversies" of 2008:

-Was Chinese Olympic gymnast He Kexin 14, or was she 16? And did anybody really think the same country that puts lead paint on our children's toys was going to come clean about this? America needed to let this gold medal loss go, and just relive the Olympic magic with another Michael Phelps commercial.

-The New Yorker runs a cover caricature of Barack and Michelle Obama as dangerous radicals -- an attempt at satire that displayed the wit and sophistication of an Ivy League sorority pledge at an all-you-can-drink cosmopolitan bar. Some readers said the drawing was offensive; some said it was too clever for its own good. And 99 percent of America said: "What's The New Yorker?"

-In Hollywood, thousands of Starbucks employees ... I mean, actors, dithered over an on-again, off-again strike vote in hopes of bring the country to its knees by depriving us of new episodes of The Mentalist. But on a positive note, the Actors Guild performed the David Copperfieldian, near-impossible trick of making the Writers Guild look savvy and reasonable.

-Oil speculators! It's their fault! They're the ones who ran up the price of oil to ... what, about $36 a barrel? Those lease deals on a new Hummer are starting to look real attractive right about now.

-Hillary Clinton crying at a campaign stop was either her showing real emotion, and therefore she was too soft to be president, or her being manipulative, and therefore was too devious to be president. Either way, she quite literally could not win. But through Barack Obama's Wish Fulfillment Program, she'll still be the one taking those 3 a.m. phone calls, after all.

-The winner of the Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers brouhaha in Green Bay? Chad Pennington in Miami.

And the No. 1 "non-troversy" of 2008?

How dare Jeremiah Wright say the nasty, hurtful things in the privacy of a black church that men of God like Pat Robertson, John Hagee and the late Jerry Falwell said in public? Barack Obama denounces Wright, comes across as a "rational" black man, then delivers a historic speech on race in America and ends up in the White House. The whole thing worked out so well, I have a feeling somewhere Wright and Obama are secretly sharing a cigar, swapping one of those "terrorist fist jabs" Fox News warned us about, and saying to each other, "We got 'em, baby. We got 'em."

Hard to believe that so much almost important stuff just about happened this year. If 2009 is anything like 2008, we can look forward to many hyperbolic moments hardly worth the cable news space they fill.

Completely disregarding the war on Kwanzaa, may I wish everyone Happy Holidays and a great New Year.

12:05 AM ET | 12-31-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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My Crappy iPhone Pix Of Cool Stuff

The great thing about working with NPR — and, really, there's like a MILLION of 'em — is all the cool stuff I get to do for the public. Meet the president. Hang out at the National Finals Rodeo in Vegas. Drink a $10,000 martini. But since most of that was for radio, I haven't often gotten to share the full experience with you, the people.

Well, now I've got this great blog where they let me do whatever I want all the time. Seriously. Whatever I want. So, I thought I'd share some pix of the cool stuff I do every other day. Unfortunately, most of the pix I take are with my iPhone camera, and, despite the fact that all things Apple are better than a permanent foot massage, the iPhones take really crappy pictures:

 

Really crappy.

Anyway...

Last week I attended a very cool book signing at the Santa Monica Museum of Art hosted by National Book Award winner Dr. Josh Kun (he's the guy in the overexposed shirt on the left). Dr. Josh (along with Roger Bennett) is the co-author of the new book And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We Have Loved and Lost.

I know you're thinking: "That's cool?"

It is when Dr. Josh plays "Name That Tune" with Jewish music with Leonard Nimoy (Nimoy is to the right, but there's, like, something reflecting all up in his grill.) Yes, that Leonard Nimoy, who — in addition to being a Mr. Spock — is also a human vault of Jewish history. And the night is even cooler when Leonard Nimoy is naming tunes like Eartha Kitt's rendition of "Ki M'Tzion," and Diana Ross and the Supremes and the Temptations blowing out a Fiddler on the Roof medley (not to Leonard's liking). There were also some mambo-spiced Jewish tunes, Korean comedian Jon Yune giving "Cantor of Shabbos" his best shot ... and music by some real cantors, too, who apparently cleaned up during the Holy Days.

But the night wasn't just about laughs. It was a historical tour of a people trying to keep their faith and their traditions relevant in the ever-changing music scene. It was funny, yeah, but it was touching and a little heartbreaking in spots and amazingly universal — the gap between Yiddish music and "race" music being surprisingly narrow.

The book itself is a great read. And the event was seriously the most entertaining evening of "Name That Tune" involving Jewish music and a star of Star Trek I'd ever attended.

2:23 PM ET | 12-16-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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Has The Fight Gone Out Of Vegas?

Manny Pacquiao throws a right at Oscar De La Hoya during the fourth round of their welterweight boxing match in Las Vegas on Saturday.

Jae C. Hong/AP

Las Vegas, like the rest of the country, is doing a post-Money Party detox. And, sure, you could make that point with a bunch of dry stats, like the fact that Nevada's foreclosure rate is one of the highest in the nation.

But I prefer a more personal evaluation — comparing Vegas from one fight night to another: the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather match I attended in May of 2007 and the De La Hoya-Manny Pacquiao bout this past Saturday night.

How hard Vegas has been hit up was immediately evident when I was able to book a room on the Strip for half-off, last minute on a Saturday night. Speaking of half: My flight out of beautiful downtown Burbank, Calif., was only half full, and half of those folks were connectors headed on beyond Vegas.

McCarran Airport was as empty as Ford Field during the fourth quarter of a Detroit Lions game.

Now, a good indicator of the busy-ness of Vegas: how long the cab lines are. The one outside the airport was nonexistent.

I stopped by my hotel, where, finally, there was a line — for check-in. That probably had more to do with the obvious cutbacks at the front desk.

Throughout the hotel, free drink coupons and reduced admissions passes were being handed out as liberally as bailout packages in Washington.

The casino floor itself was a little slow but lively. Certainly not as subdued as when I was there just after 9/11. And most of the folks I talked with — cab drivers, casino hosts — agreed that things were bad, but not awful.

But this was a fight night. Back in 2007, tickets for De La Hoya-Mayweather sold out in a couple of hours. For De La Hoya-Pacquiao, I could have reserved a couple of eleventh-hour tickets for face value.

Instead — let's say that in the interest of investigative journalism, I procured some tickets from a gentleman outside the arena at a quadruple discount that put me right on the floor.

The sweet science is best observed close enough that one can see the sweat ejected from a head on the receiving end of a hot jab.

There were a lot of hot jabs Saturday night.

So, compared with a year and a half ago, is Vegas hurting? Very much so. And as a Vegas-phile, seeing the city down on a knee is painful to watch. But with discounted airfare, hotel room and fight tickets, this might be one of the few times I've traveled to The Meadows and actually made money.

5:00 AM ET | 12- 9-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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The Hollywood War On Religion That Isn't

Even I haven't downed enough L.A. Kool-Aid to believe that somehow Hollywood movies are an overt instrument of morality. But according to a recently released survey conducted on behalf of the Anti-Defamation League, 43 percent of the respondents thought that Hollywood and the national media are waging an organized campaign to "weaken the influence of religious values in this country."

"Organized campaign?" Really. If there is one, my Evite to that gathering must've gotten dropped in my junk mailbox.

Of course, since Hollywood knows I've got this massively read blog on the NPR Web site, they probably don't trust me with their secret "down-with-religion" meetings.

But if Hollywood is so systematically anti-religion, how do you explain films like The Passion of the Christ? How do you explain The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe? How do you explain TV shows like Touched by an Angel, Highway to Heaven, 7th Heaven, Saving Grace (with its angelic visitations) which are TV staples going back to when that certain nun learned how to fly?

If anything there's a lack of diversity of religion in entertainment. Where are the TV shows that feature families who are practicing Muslims or Buddhists? Meanwhile, Hollywood's got no problem making light of, say, Hindus in films like The Love Guru.

And if the American public is so into morality in movies, why don't they throw more of their disposable income at religious-themed entertainment? For every Passion of the Christ there's a Fireproof that comes and goes with no notice. While The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a monster hit, the follow-up — Prince Caspian — was a relative disappointment at the box office. And as I'm so often hectored by the wildly "open minded" when I note the lack of diversity at the multiplex: Show business is a business. People need to vote with their dollars.

The truth is, Judeo-Christian ethics abound in entertainment. No, you're not going to find them in Saw IV. Or Saw V, or whatever number they're up to. But you can find such values in family fare such as Wall-E or historical dramas like The Express (another film that went underappreciated by all). Heck, you can find them in any romantic comedy that giddily espouses the bromide that "love conquers all."

Even "may the Force be with you" is nothing but a spiritual blessing.

So, is Hollywood anti-religion? Not in my opinion. But unlike, say, politicians and preachers who talk faith before going off to speak in tongues to their mistresses, Hollywood just doesn't wear its faith on its sleeve.

12:57 PM ET | 12- 2-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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Proof! Obama's Not A Muslim!

One of the many conspiracies that ran throughout the election was that Barack Obama was secretly a Muslim. Apparently a "sleeper" agent dating back to time he spent as a kid in Indonesia all set to do ruination to America — somehow — once elected president. Personally, I think 40-some years is a long time to be undercover on the off chance you might one day get elected to the highest office in the land. I guess the theorist would chalk that up merely to Obama's hard-core radical dedication to the cause.

But, finally, we have proof that Obama is in fact not a sleeper agent. And it comes from the most reliable of sources: al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

In a posting on terrorist Web sites, Zawahiri calls Obama — according to the translation — a "house Negro" in the vein of Bushies Condi Rice and Colin Powell.

It should be noted that such a view is really more liberal than radical, as any number of lefties have used similar derogatory terms to refer to Rice and Powell. Most famously, it echoes entertainer Harry Belafonte, who used the slur in reference to Powell.

Be that as it may...

In speaking of Obama and his lack of "real" blackness, Zawahiri says Obama is "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans," such as Malcolm X. Presumably, Zawahiri makes this comparison based on Malcolm X's fiery accusations of the "white man" being little more than the devil incarnate when Malcolm X was a Nation of Islam Temple leader.

However, what Zawahiri failed to note is Malcolm X's transformative pilgrimage to Mecca, where he saw Muslims of all ethnicities and came to realize it's individuals who are good or bad, not races. Malcolm X believed, as well, that Islam as a faith could transcend racial prejudice.

Of course, facts tend to take the punch out of a good hate rant and are therefore left best unsaid.

At any rate, thanks to Zawahiri we can put to rest the Obama's-a-Muslim rap. As if, in a land of religious freedom, his faith should matter to begin with.

2:59 PM ET | 11-20-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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Fear-Mongering From The Far Right

As I've previously noted, from the "subtleness" of Karl Rove to the overtness of Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland and his "uppity" slur, the far, far right loves them some race-baiting. It failed to deliver the White House for them. But, like a jilted lover, they just can't seem to handle America's rejection of their tactics. Instead of taking the time to go for a "swim in Lake Me" and consider what it is they've done wrong, they instead project fault on the guy America would rather "date."

Talking with the Associated Press on Monday, Georgia Rep. Paul Broun said he's got concerns President-elect Barack Obama will lead the nation toward some kind of Gestapo-like Marxist dictatorship — this in apparent ignorance of the fact Nazism and Marxism were at odds during the Second World War.

Says Broun of Obama's call for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military:

"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."

Broun was referring to a campaign speech Obama made calling for an expansion of America's foreign service.

What Broun seems to miss is that Obama was looking to increase America's diplomatic corps as well as build a civilian reserve corps devoted to postwar reconstruction efforts, rather than create an actual civilian police force — concepts that were also championed by current Secretary of State Condi Rice. But then Rice is probably just another secret sleeper Gestapo-Marxist agent that Rep. Broun just didn't have time to out — over the last eight years. And she's probably a Muslim, too!

It should be pointed out that as he's been caught spewing hate Broun now "regrets" having made the remarks.

"The point I tried to make is that he is extremely liberal," said Broun.

Yeah, you know, the way the Nazis were all liberal like that.

Regardless of his lame pullback, Broun's blatant hate talk is not only nonsensical, it's offensive on many levels. Intellectually, of course. But having been said the day before Veterans' Day it's offensive to anyone who actually wore a uniform and fought Nazism, as it is certainly offensive to the victims of the Nazi genocide to make the equation to Hitler. Beyond that, loose hate talk only breeds more hate and I think that's something we can pretty much do without.

You'd think after the election that the radical wing of the Republican Party would have learned that fear-mongering doesn't work any better than race-baiting. But as they will be a political non-entity for at least the next two years, they'll have plenty of time to meditate on just that.

1:31 PM ET | 11-12-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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Is Black America Ready For A Black President?

The response to the call of "Yes, we can" was the election of Barack Obama to the highest office in the land. It's amazing when you figure that a whole lot of people who've never even had a black boss have proven ready for a person of color as president.

But as the euphoria of the night turns into a Vegas-style buffet of harsh realities, we have to ask: Though America seems ready for a black president, is Black America really ready for a black president?

Sounds a little strange, sure. Emotionally, obviously. But what about practically?

Obama ran as a post-racial candidate. During his campaign, he suggested replacing race-based affirmative action with measures weighted toward socioeconomic factors. He gave a Father's Day speech encouraging black dads to be more engaged. And for his trouble, he was reward with an offer of castration from Jesse Jackson.

Which, as an aside, makes me wonder if on election night Jackson was crying tears of joy, or if he was getting misty-eyed because he knew his day was done?

Obama isn't alone in inciting ire for extolling personal responsibility. Comedian Bill Cosby delivered his "Pound Cake" speech on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and claimed that not all blacks were "holding up their end of the bargain." In return, he was accused of being a race traitor. As if self-reliance equaled self-hatred.

Sorry, but not waiting for somebody else to get it done is a value that brought people of color up from slavery, through a failed Reconstruction and Jim Crow, to the shared experience of this past Tuesday.

The fear for some is that Obama's election will start people thinking, "Hey, guess we can roll up the civil rights carpet." Hardly. Let's face it: There are gonna be bigots in America for the foreseeable future.

But the cry of the Old Schoolers that American is a racist nation begins to ring hollow. In the era of Obama -- along with Oprah and Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and business executives Dick Parsons and Ken Chenault and on and on -- are those who've made bank flogging the victim stick ready to quit talking about who needs to be cut where and start admitting that yes, we can?

There was a text message sent around before the election that read: "Rosa sat so Martin could march. Martin marched so Obama could run."

Well, Obama was ready, willing and able to run for all of us. Are all of us ready for him?

5:00 AM ET | 11- 7-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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The Missed Opportunity Of Sarah Palin

Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin speaks during a campaign rally at the Silver Spurs Arena in Kissimmee, Fla., on Sunday.

Matt Stroshane/Getty Images

Let's just go ahead and call this thing for Barack Obama. If I've done my math correctly, I'm giving him 369 electoral votes. Clinton-esque numbers.

Now, if you have no interest in talking about the "other side" of politics, consider the above your takeaway.

Take it. Go away (but please come back some other time) while I lament the short, could-have-been-brilliant career of Sarah Palin.

Over the past eight years, the Republican Party has imploded. In this election cycle, the conservative intelligentsia has effectively split from the "base," that portion of the party that is seemingly "excited" or "energized" not by issues of war or oil or the economy but by those that forge a social wedge. Add to that the shifting demographics of America and the Republican Party's woeful inability to attract people of color, and there is a very real possibility that for the foreseeable future the Republicans will be reduced to a nonentity within politics.

The Republicans desperately need their Barack Obama.

It could have been Sarah Palin.

Could have been, except for John McCain's gut-check, Hail Mary, game-changing, unvetted decision to take an inexperienced "small town" politician and dump her on the national stage with little more than 60 days to go before votin' time.

Palin instantly struck a chord with the "don't care about nothing except 'values' " portion of the party. What Palin brought to the ticket was an ability to blunt the Democrats' message of change — personified by Obama and Hillary Clinton and even Bill Richardson on a national level — while being able to speak the language of "values" with the GOP base.

However — token hire that she was — Palin 1.0 alienated Republicans who don't support affirmative action that puts the underqualified at the front of the line. (And I give those Republicans credit for at least being consistent on the question of capability.)

And no matter her folksy ways, in those 60 or so days, Palin got stung by some controversies, nontroversies and gaffes. Same as any other politician and, for that matter, anybody who's in the eye of the media storm 1,439 minutes of each day. But when all that happens on your first date with America and is further exacerbated by the Liberal-Elite-Sexist-Gotcha-Not-Pro-America-Part-Of-America media that you mostly refuse to talk to, what chance do you really have?

Truthfully, seriously, can you imagine what it might have been like if — starting at this year's Republican National Convention, much as with Obama in 2004 — Palin had been given a slow and thoughtful rollout? You don't have to be a Palin supporter to acknowledge — tested, vetted and brought up to speed — she would have been positioned to truly lead her party, as opposed to merely appearing as the illegitimate love child of Dan Quayle and Geraldine Ferraro.

That is not to say Palin couldn't be rehabilitated within the next four years. Hey, if Nixon could make a comeback...

But McCain's missteps, the taint of failure following his loss and questions that will surely linger about the woman herself give much ammunition to those in her own party who would potentially run against her.

Palin's major hurdle in the next cycle will be explaining her "pallin' around" with the AIP, a radical organization that seeks the breakup of the United States.

That is quite a lot, and I haven't even mentioned having to live down the catchphrase "I can see Russia from my house." However, overcoming all of that — as Reagan overcame the vapid actor tag — is only going to make the governor all the stronger. If so, Palin 2.0 will be a force to be reckoned with.

4:56 AM ET | 10-30-2008 | permalink | trackbacks (0)

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