Controlling procrastination not to be put off

I've already gone outside four times to smoke a cigarette; "Poke wars" have been raging on Facebook.com; I'm trying to decide whether to use iTunes or Windows Media Player to listen to music; and about 40 different YouTube.com videos of people cranking that Soulja Boy are keeping me from studying for two exams this week.

And they shouldn't be. I've never had the best study habits (or any, really), and minor distractions that come from the luxury of owning a laptop seem like a better way to spend my time than worrying about whether farmers could cope with the realities of Reconstruction and the Industrial Revolution.

My point: procrastination sucks.

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BET's new Read a Book campaign causes controversy

The staple of Black Entertainment Television for the past 15 years has been music videos preaching violence, female degradation and buying tricked-out Impalas sitting on spinning 24-inch rims. But an animated short called "Read a Book" is being ridiculously singled out as vulgar, ignorant and offensive.

The cartoon, set to a hip-hop remix of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and created by Bomani "D'Mite" Armah and Tyree Dillihay, is a parody of BET's long-standing bread and butter of video girls in booty pants (spelling B-O-O-K across the behind), thugs with assault weapons (shooting copies of Zora Neale Hurston at unsuspecting foes) and profane lyrics, imploring people to "read a book, read a book, read a muh'fuckin book." Armah and Dillihay contend that the cartoon is pure parody in principle, but not everyone sees it that way.

Most notable among the dissenters is the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who invited Armah to speak on his radio show, "Keep Hope Alive." The reverend rails against Armah, comparing the music video to the racist rants of Michael Richards and Don Imus. But what he fails to realize, is the condition with which this video was made. Richards and Imus spoke in distaste, while Armah's creation comically satirizes the sad state of rap music and exists as a launching pad for debate and discussion into our media and our parenting skills.

Jackson has done many important and incredible things on behalf of black people everywhere, but as Token astutely observed on "South Park," "Jesse Jackson is not the emperor of black people."

Dissent for this cartoon comes with the stench of "protecting our children" rhetoric. In an interview with CNN's Tony Harris, or as I like to call him, "Black Bill O'Reilly," Armah and Dillihay detect the false juxtaposition of "Read a Book" with traditional children's programming like "Schoolhouse Rock" and "The Electric Company." They argue their video parallels other music videos like "Ay Bay Bay" and "Bartender." According to Denys Cowan, BET's Senior Vice President of Animation, "The video was not part of any literacy campaign or "Schoolhouse Rock" alternative, but was intended for BET's demographic of 18-34 year olds."

But there is a fine line between genuine parody and sending a message, and anyone arguing this video is the sole purpose of controversy on BET is a hypocrite. On a network that regularly features rappers, saying "pour [shots] on the models, shut up bitch swallow. If you can't swallow, shut up bitch gargle," how is a cartoon encouraging good hygiene and drinking water at such a source of tension?

According to The New York Times, the video seems to flaunt every negative stereotype in the black community. Kam Williams of Newsblaze.com goes a step further, arguing the video flaunts women as a source of lust for impressionable young boys. She goes on to say that many black entertainers "declared war" on the dignity of the black female, rather than take a stand against grave injustices. She cited D.L. Hughley's response to Imus on "The Tonight Show," saying, "There were some nappy-headed women on that team. You know it's true. They were some of the ugliest women I've seen in my whole life."

This double standard will continue to exist for some time. People get so worried about what they say, and in an increasingly globalized world where one's speeches and quotes can be uploaded online mere minutes after they are said, we are moving closer and closer to a massive, user-controlled big brother society. Just because the NAACP held a public burial for the N-word in the wake of the Imus scandal, it doesn't mean rappers and racists alike won't continue to use the word. Freedom of speech comes with an implied responsibility, and it's up to us to ensure that what we say does not come off a certain way.

There is nothing wrong with words; rather, the problem exists with the context in which we use them. In this day and age, racially motivated humor, just as any other humor, is becoming more risqué and more sensitive. We need thicker skin, but we also need to be responsible for the words that we use. I will not begin to assign a list of words for each race and gender based on how each demographic may feel about a certain word. My job is to spread my opinion to a college campus, and I believe anyone should say anything they want because they know better if they say otherwise. This country is long overdue for a conscientious (and real) dialogue on protecting our children, being smart when we speak and giving arguments based on logic and common sense.

The best way to protect our children is simple. Turn off the TV, disconnect the cable and tell your kids to "read a muh'fuckin' book." They might actually learn something.

Originally published in The Daily Reveille...

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Feelings on Bush change as war on terror drags on

To Josh, Aaron, Jeremy, Jaeger, Julian and Allison, I wish you were here. Hopefully, the progress report on the war will bring you out of Iraq and back home where you belong.

I was sitting in my high school chemistry class in 10th grade, talking excitedly with my friends about this new movie coming out called "Zoolander." A fellow classmate ran in, saying that someone had blown up the Pentagon. We quickly jumped for the television, and at 8:59 a.m. CST on Sept. 11, 2001, the collapse of the South Tower of the World Trade Center was broadcast to a worldwide audience. We remained speechless, confused for a moment as to whether we were watching a movie or reality.

After about five minutes, we decided to continue with the day's lesson, for which our teacher, Dodie Wells, planned a demonstration involving the mixture of pure magnesium and water. For the non-chemistry majors out there, when pure magnesium is mixed with water, it explodes. The bang was audible from the outside, as some classes decided to exit for the day and try to contact loved ones in New York and Washington.

But the phones didn't work. I couldn't reach my cousins, Lindsay and Jamey, until a week later. No one at my school, Isidore Newman School, knew what to do. We were all gathered in the auditorium, where Dean of Students Dale Smith confirmed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He said President Bush was on his way to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, and that senior Will Ensenat, the president's godson, had been escorted off school grounds by the U.S. Secret Service.

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Drinking age cannot be regulated by laws

f you've walked around campus the day of an LSU football game, you've seen how Louisianians feel about alcohol (for those of you unfamiliar with tailgating etiquette around campus, wait until Saturday). Kegs, coolers and shots are consumed in all directions, as Tiger fans get liquored up before the game. This will be my third season of LSU football as a student, and I'm still not 21.

I turn 21 just 12 days after Mardi Gras next year - but I'm not bitter. Many people think I would be a little more enraged, but it's not as if I can't get alcohol in New Orleans - it's just the principle of the thing. If every bar, liquor store and restaurant all of a sudden decided to enforce the drinking age, I'd be out of luck. But The Big Easy is known as such for many reasons, one of them being the ease with which underage New Orleanians can acquire alcohol. The age law has long since become obsolete.

According to the National Institute of Health, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 is the law concerning underage drinking. While not specifically mandating an age limit, it requires a 10 percent decrease in federal highway funding for states that don't enforce the minimum drinking age of 21, forcing states into submission. Barring certain exceptions, it is illegal for me to purchase alcohol in the United States and most Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran. In the rest of the civilized world, the minimum drinking age varies from 16 to 20.

I can vote for my president, my governor and my mayor, but I can't have a drink. I can be shipped to Iraq to fight for my country (i.e. going to kill people), and I can have a drink in Baghdad, but I can't have a drink in America. I can smoke cigarettes, which have been all but proven to give me and the people around me lung cancer, but I can't have a drink.

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