Top 3 Reasons I Heart the FADER (in no particular order of affection)

1. how can you not love a magazine blog that posts this picture every time they mention Outkast?

or inexplicably creates collages like this

(miriams favorite)

2. they regularly, rather exclusively, post greatness like this:

The Rub’s History of Hip Hop: The Year 2000

complete with a link for the download

3. they always know bout all that new new, be it style, music, art, events, all that. they’re on it, the best of it, and uasually before it even officially happens.

and 4 (yeah i know i said 3 reasons). in the 4+ years ive been a reader, i’ve learned a lot from the FADER. mucho gusto suckaaaassss.

MEND: Who Made Your Bag?

what if these kinds of products became the status quo?

-peace.pace.selam.

Michael Eric Dyson Schools Andrew Breitbart on Real Time with Bill Maher

M.E.D = the man. thee.man. mucho thanks to Max for schooling me about Dyson….mucho thanks to Dyson for schooling Breitbart about…well, everything. excuse the video quality, or lack thereof, it was the best one i could find w the full portion of the discussion.

enjoy.

-peace.pace.selam.

Best.Diet.Ever. …?… [TIME]

Indian patient Prahlad Jani claims he has survived without food and water for more than seven decades. A multidisciplinary study is being led by Defense Institute of Physiology & Allied Science (DIPAS) neurologist Sudhir Shah to examine the man, believed to be in his 80s, and the claim he has maintained a hunger strike, without water, for several decades.

Click here to read more from TIME.

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement [TED.com]

“With help from some surprising footage, Derek Sivers explains how movements really get started. (Hint: it takes two.)”

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Click here to watch more TED Talks.

television aint all bad all the time…

eeeeeeeeeveryone once in a while the glowing box provides some gems of goodness, be it comical or thought-provoking, and its just so good it wakes you up from your drone-like daze and demands your attention all over again. case in point episodes from both Bones and House that were especially fruitful in this regard a couple weeks back.

enjoy.

peace.pace.selam.

from season 5 episode 19 of ‘Bones‘:

Dr. Camille Saroyan: All organisms evolve and develop along patterns only recognized in retrospect. your life doesn’t exist outside the laws of nature.

Dr. Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan: And, in ignorance, I await my own surprise…

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from ‘House‘:

Dr. House: …My unicorn isn’t a unicorn; its a donkey w a plunger stuck to its face” -House M.D.

HBO’s new series ‘How To Make It In America’

its not bad. yoni and i decided it not as great as it could be. it’s kinda predictable, but watching it reminds me of some of my friends from LA and it could become something interesting. don’t forget to stop the video at 40 seconds 😉

-peace.pace.selam.

Our Lady of The Bronx [Fader]

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Every year, the Bronx-based lowrider bike club the Firme Rydaz make a pilgrimage devoted to La Virgen de Guadalupe on December 12, her Feast Day. They walk their bikes and a heavy, huge, handmade effigy of the Virgin from their neighborhood in the Bronx, hundreds of blocks to 14th street at the cusp of midtown Manhattan. Filmmaker/photographer Carlos Alvarez Montero documented their somber journey in his moving short documentary Our Lady of the Bronx tracking them through the New York frigid air and showing the beauty of two Mexican traditions—one five centuries old, the other mere decades new—where street culture intersects with religious devotion. As they make their way to offer flowers and sing happy birthday to La Virgen in a cathedral, the film depicts an act of deep love for an icon who not only symbolizes Catholicism, but represents Mexico, while illuminating the divides and diversity throughout New York City.

Read more from the Fader.

Fun Fridays!: Unicorns DO exist!…kind of… [National Geographic]

for those of you that spent your childhood wishing you could behold, just once in your life, the sight of a beautiful, innocent, ethereal unicorn…well you never will- but here’s the next best thing!

…kind of less cool when you consider the “horn” is really it’s left tooth tho…that’s just kind of uncomfortable…

enjoy!

peace.pace.selam.

Pond’s White Beauty Commercial

this is ridiculous on so many levels it doesn’t even warrant conversation about how truly pathetic and unfortunate it is. the sad fact is though that in nearly every country around the world, especially in countries throughout africa, the middle east and asia, there is a huge market for products like these.

how do we teach the world to love itself??

-peace.pace.selam.

p.s. this video is only part 1 of an incredibly cheesy, faux intense 5 part series.

The New Sexism [TIME]

Interesting that they don’t make more note of the fact that you could supplant the word sexism for racism and would still be conceptually spot on.

I’d like to dedicate this post to miriam, my personal black feminism educator ;-D

enjoy!

peace.pace.selam.

Do shows like The Bachelor, above, promote sexist stereotypes like the view that women are man-obsessed?

Women have come a long way, baby, but not as far as we’d like to think. That’s the provocative message of the new book Enlightened Sexism. The blatant discrimination of eras past, says author Susan Douglas, has been supplanted by a more insidious form of bias, which suggests that sexist messages are O.K. if couched in irony. (It’s fine to enjoy watching catty contestants on The Bachelor snipe at one another — because, come on, we all know most women aren’t like that. Ha-ha. Right?) Douglas talked to TIME about the economic plight of women today, the dangers of powerful female TV characters and the future of feminism.

What is enlightened sexism?
[It’s] a new, subtle form of sexism. It insists that full equality for women has been achieved, and therefore we don’t need feminism anymore. So it’s O.K. to resurrect retrograde, sexist images of women in the media, all with a wink and a laugh.(See TIME’s covers on women.)

Non-Violence in Palestine [notesfromamedinah.wordpress.com]

I stumbled upon this blog, rather this post, a couple weeks ago while I was signing in to my own. Thought it was interesting so of course, I had to share.

enjoy!

peace.pace.selam.

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Last night I had a very interesting conversation with a friend about the use of non-violence in the Palestinian resistance.  My friend, whose father was an active member of the non-violent movement in the US, believed that the Palestinians who used any form of violence against Israel – from throwing stones to launching missiles – were undermining the Palestinian cause.  By his own admission, my friend is not an active follower of the conflict and was basing his opinions more on his father’s activities and his recollections of the resistance movement in South Africa, thus his opinions reveal a lot about popular American opinion.

Our conversation reminded me a post by our friends over at Blogging the Casbah where Abu G wrote about his experiences at Palestinian protests.  Palestinian stones were met with tear gas and rubber bullets.  There was a nice little debate about the symbolic nature of stone throwing – to summarize, throwing a stone does little damage but physically demonstrates a rejection of Israeli occupation.  One commenter noted that Palestinians have branded themselves as “stone-throwers who occasionally explode themselves on checkpoints.”  Similarly, my friend last night made the acute observation that, in the minds of Americans, one Palestinian throwing stones forces the entire population into that stereotype.

Ending Fistula-Empowering Women: Help Young Women Reclaim Their Lives and Transform Villages

above: a documentary about fistula in Ethiopia

below: a little something you can vote for to help end fistula in Ethiopia. 

enjoy.

-peace.pace.selam.

Click HERE to vote for the Ending Fistula-Empowering Women: Help Young Women Reclaim Their Lives and Transform Villages project in the Dell Social Innovation Competition. 

Deemed inadequate, a 13 year old girl is abandoned by her husband and father and left on the outskirts of town in a doorless hut so hyenas could eat her. Cause of abandonment: obstetric fistula, a condition eliminated during the 19th century in US. Although this 13 year old girl made it to the hospital, few girls do. The consequences of obstetric fistula can leave a girl physically impaired, emotionally scarred, psychologically damaged and socially ostracized. Lack of obstetric care plays a significant role- currently only 1 midwife per 100,000 people- yet child marriages are also a primary cause of fistula.  

Project Resilience will work with young Ethiopian (15-23) post-surgery fistula survivors that have been ostracized from their villages. We will serve as a center for healing and self-empowerment.  Collaborating with Addis Ababa’s Fistula Hospital and Black Lion Hospital, Project Resilience’s innovative model will provide living quarters for a period of three years during which time they will gain both classroom and hands-on midwife training, gain administrative/managerial skills, learn about family planning methods and the dangers of early childbearing. Each woman will then be assigned to a rural area where she will provide health education and services, midwife and maternal care & job opportunities significantly contributing to  fistula rate. Outreach programs will create jobs for young girls and educate young children beginning a necessary shift in the cultural and economic perspectives of women. Project Resilience uplifts communities by empowering women. Strong and healthy women create strong and healthy communities. 

Eat out tonight! Restaurant.com

Tried and tested, a friend of mine used one of their coupons and had a great, and more importantly, AFFORDABLE, dinner because of it!

enjoy!

-peace.peace.selam.

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Restaurant.com serves as the community matchmaker, introducing great restaurants to great people. From appetizers to dessert, from wine to dinner, Restaurant.com helps restaurant owners promote the new and unique aspects of their restaurants while providing diners with great value in a fun, new and cost effective way. Your favorite restaurant is in your neighborhood – maybe you just don’t know it yet. Restaurant.com is here to help.

Visit Restaurant.com

Top 5 Things Missing from Most Entrepreneur Pitches [BIG blog]

Just a little something for the many that think they want to start a business and don’t know where or how to… start.

enjoy!

-peace.pace.selam.

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Top 5 things missing from most entrepreneur pitches

While I never did really stop seeing new deals, even when I was out of VC, now that I’m back in, I’ve really ramped up the deal flow engine.  I’ve been enjoying the meetings I’ve had over the last few weeks, but some of them have reminded me what I routinely see missing from most pitches.

Here are the things that nearly every early stage investor needs to bet on that are too often missing: