Today, in my internet wanderings, I came across the Wikipedia article on the song Whip My Hair by Willow Smith, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s daughter.

The article contains in-depth exploration of the cultural impact of this release on the pre-teen African American community..

Veronica Miller of NPR commented that … “little black girls are having the best week ever”, noting the rarity that “little African-American girls are publicly celebrated for their uniqueness and beauty”, due to non-positive comments about their physical appearance, making them question individual and collective beauty. On the single’s video, Miller said, “Little Willow is operating with a sort of empowerment that grown women can sense, admire, and in some cases, envy”, stating, “not many girls are taught that it’s OK to openly love and affirm yourself.”

…and a penetrating analysis of the style of the piece…

Lyrically the song is about letting loose, having fun and being full of swagger, while she asks ladies to “whip their hair” and “shake haters off”. The lyrics have motivational undertones, speaking of self-love and assurance, and referring to letting your hair down as a representation of this in parts like the line, “Keep fighting until I get there, when I’m down and I feel like giving up/I whip my hair back and forth, I whip it, I whip it real good.”

…as well as a detailed synopsis of the music video, including crucially important color choices…

…Smith then enters the room in colorful attire, including a blue vest, orange pants and a belt with her name on it, while donning rhinestones on her lips and extravagant nail tips. With her braids shaped to form a heart, she carries a boombox filled with paint and plays it while undoing her braids and dipping them into paint inside the stereo, using her hair as a paintbrush and enlivening the atmosphere with colors… [She then dons] a colorful mohawk, performing choreography with dancers with blue shirts in front of a light blue backdrop. She alternates different hairstyles, and then walks down a hallway with her backup dancers, donning a cotton candy-esque hairstyle.

…all painstakingly compiled by some sycophantic troglodyte.

Now, that’s not to say I have anything against the song or the singer: they’re both … fine. It’s just a little disappointing that Wikipedia has almost twice as much text dedicated to this song (which will undoubtedly be jeté aux oubliettes, blissfully forgotten in five years’ time, like that Baja Men song which shall not be named), than to a song with actual historical and cultural significance. Like … I don’t know, this one.

Nauseating.

Admittedly, Wikipedia’s Stairway to Heaven article is longer, and since it’s usually voted best rock song ever, it can serve as a useful comparison. But it’s not longer by much (and it probably wouldn’t be at all if Willow were more ambitious with backward masking).

Oh well. It’s not like I was operating under the delusion that Wikipedia was an ideal information source, but it’s a little disheartening to think that the entire endeavor of constructing a user-maintained encyclopedia will forever be hobbled by the bias of “what people care about.” That is to say, there will be ten times as much human effort expended on writing and moderating Justin Bieber’s suite of articles as there will be on something like the depopulation of indigenous Americans.

Maybe it’s fine. Maybe after a few decades of operation the “fad” articles will be winnowed down to just the essential facts. Or maybe the the prolixity of such articles can be meta-analyzed as a pseudo-primary source — a signature of the zeitgeist. I don’t care, just so long as nobody looks back on Whip My Hair as more important than it was.

RIP John Lennon, October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980.

Six years ago today, Bush announced we were going to war with Iraq.

Listen to the language he uses:

“…to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.”

“…Saddam’s ability to wage war…”

“We have no ambition in Iraq, except to remove a threat, and restore control of that country to its own people.”

“[we] will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.”

“We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of firefighters, and police, and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

“…the dangers to our country, and the world, will be overcome.”

Today we look back, and we can say there was no threat. Yet the Bush Administration clearly whipped up support for the war by implying impending attacks on the American people. We were duped, and it can be very hard to admit that.

It’s especially hard for the families of the troops still over there. Faced with a lack of justification, many of them have understandably substituted a new rallying call: the liberation of the Iraqi people. Don’t get me wrong, spreading freedom is a noble cause, but this gripes me for two reasons.

First, the American people are not generally preoccupied with this kind of thing, and if we were, there would be far more worthy subjects for our attention. I don’t mean to downplay the atrocities committed in Iraq under Saddam Hussein, but North Korea, East Timor, Rwanda, Darfur, and Cambodia are all instances where someone should have stepped in to end brutally oppressive regimes or mass murder, and the U.S. didn’t step up to the plate. We shouldn’t be allowed to wear the ‘liberator’ hat unless we are out there indiscriminately liberating.

Of maximal relevance is Saddam’s gassing the Kurds. There was no palpable threat to the American people at that time, so we let him have at it. When we went to war in 2003, it was because we were made to fear him. Make of that what you will — our obligation to peace and freedom as a superpower is another debate entirely — but we are not liberators, and that is not why we went to war in Iraq.

The second problem is that we were not spreading freedom. Freedom would entail allowing the Iraqis to choose their own goverment and economic systems. We essentially installed your standard western Executive/Parliamentary/Judicial representative republic, which we assume to be the most highly developed form of government (debatable). It was certainly better than the dictatorship they had before, however what concerns me is that with American style democracy, came American style economy. We didn’t separate the two concepts, we just set up a capitalist market and called it done.

Nowhere is it written that Democracy = Captalism, which is one thing that frustrates me so much about the American political environment today. One could imagine a capitalist dictatorship, a socialist democracy, or a communist republic, but in practice we don’t distinguish economic system from political system — we mistakenly think it’s a package deal.

The Iraqis very well may have wanted to be socialist country like France, but we didn’t give them the option. Instead, we opened their market to all of our ridiculously cheap American products and services, so they will never be able to develop industry of their own. We won’t let them institute tariffs on our goods, so they will be perpetually suckling at the teat of American hypercapitalism; without economic autonomy, they will remain a third world country forever.

We are quick to “bring ‘em what we got,” but we soon forget how we got here: a century of sky-high tariffs and economic isolation, which fostered growth of our own economy. Only then did we open up our market to foreign goods. We are denying this to the Iraqis.

Some ‘freedom.’

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One last thing Bush said:

“…coalition forces will make every effort to spare innocent civilians from harm.”

Yeah Right.

h/t Andrew Sullivan

I wish I could roll this out whenever I come across some creationist hater.

House Resolution 847
In the House of Representatives, U. S.,
December 11, 2007.

Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans and many other cultures and nationalities, is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States and the world;

Whereas there are approximately 225,000,000 Christians in the United States, making Christianity the religion of over three-fourths of the American population;

Whereas there are approximately 2,000,000,000 Christians throughout the world, making Christianity the largest religion in the world and the religion of about one-third of the world population;

Whereas Christians and Christianity have contributed greatly to the development of western civilization;

Whereas the United States, being founded as a constitutional republic in the traditions of western civilization, finds much in its history that points observers back to its Judeo-Christian roots;

Whereas on December 25 of each calendar year, American Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ;

Whereas for Christians, Christmas is celebrated as a recognition of God’s redemption, mercy, and Grace; and

Whereas many Christians and non-Christians throughout the United States and the rest of the world, celebrate Christmas as a time to serve others: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives–

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

–

“With the We Like Christians Resolution of 2007, Congress hereby decrees that it likes Christians.

Although this may not effect any offical change in the governance of the United States pursuant to the First Amendment of the Constitution, we nonetheless find it prudent to run out the clock writing completely worthless and borderline illegal legislation.

On the agenda for tomorrow:

1. Adding to the congressional rubber band ball
2. Counting the tiles in the Capitol Dome ceiling
3. Heads up 7up

4. Something to do with taxes, or terrorism (if time allows)”

Some guys took the liberty of tracing place names back etymologically, and the result is fascinating:

While some names are unsurprising, like ‘Sibling Love’ for Philadelphia, some are intiriguing like ‘Home Ruler’ for America, or downright bizarre like ‘Moon Navel’ for Mexico.

h/t Strange Maps

Andrew Sullivan comments on the “hole in our collective memory” that was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

After we defeated the Japanese, we imposed strict censorship laws on them, and did away with most of the evidence of the horrific act we had perpetrated against them. Resultingly, images of the destruction are hard to come by. However, recently, photographs of the destruction surfaced.

The images are silently terrific, like this one, which depicts the famous “nuclear shadow” of a man standing on a bridge.

His footprints are outlined in chalk, and I am assuming he was vaporized instantly.

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Noam Chomsky said that these bombings were likely the greatest acts of terrorism in history (by the definition of terrorism we apply to our current adversaries), but concedes that they were probably necessary. I am inclined to agree with him.

h/t Andrew