Fifty more lessons learned throughout this year

50. Mike the Tiger can’t be fed in public because of “security reasons.”

49. LeBron James is the next Michael Jordan.

48. Twitter is evil.

47. iPhones are worse.

46. Smart phones were not made for smart people.

45. Talent isn’t skin deep. Yes, this one’s about Susan Boyle, the British singing sensation that looks like the offspring of Joan Rivers and Austin Powers.

44. It’s tough to talk when you’re teabagging.

43. Michelle Obama is — and should be — the hottest woman on the planet.

42. Short shorts with words displayed on the rear end will never go away.

41. Rap music is dying. Case in point: the new hit song, “Do the Ricky Bobby.”

40. Felons do the best work, as evidenced by their tireless efforts on Student Government’s Class Gift project.

39. Members of SG don’t realize how little they matter or how pretentious they are.

38. It’s tough to get to “The Next Level” when you’re at the bottom of the top tier. It’s even tougher to do “More” with budget cuts.

37. Crying gets you nowhere.

36. Hannah Montana is to America what hepatitis is to the third world. It’s curable and life would be better without it.

35. I’m kind of a jerk.

34. The Octomom is getting exactly what she wants in coverage of her lack of parental skill.

33. Sarah Palin thought about getting what she would outlaw across the country.

32. There’s no difference between Sarah Palin and the Octomom, only California isn’t dumb enough to elect Octomom governor.

31. “Scrubs” is dead.

30. “The Office” is dying.

29. For a hint into the stupidity of America, tune into any matchmaking series on VH1.

28. Jon Stewart is a better journalist than Sean Hannity.

27. Stephen Colbert, the current comedian, is a better journalist than Glenn Beck, the former comedian.

26. Rachel Maddow might singlehandedly save the value of cable news.

25. Chancellor Michael Martin looks more like the Monopoly Man than former Chancellor Sean O’Keefe.

24. Vice President Joe Biden doesn’t have a filter between what he thinks and what he says.

23. Neither does Rush Limbaugh.

22. Neither does Bill O’Reilly.

21. The Twilight series will destroy humankind before global warming ever melts us.

20. If you lived in Somalia, you’d be a pirate too.

19. Navy Seals are amazing.

18. If Al-Qaeda were smart, they would recruit geese.

17. America is only No. 1 in obesity and imprisonment.

16. Friedrich Nietzsche was right.

15. Martin Heidegger was dead wrong.

14. Joel Osteen missed the point.

13. The correct debate about torture is not whether those techniques worked, it’s whether those techniques were torture.

12. Ask the Japanese we executed after they waterboarded our troops in World War II.

11. None of us know anything, but we all share the same capacity to learn.

10. The truly wise questions. The truly dumb assumes.

9. Liquor before beer, never fear. Beer before liquor, never been sicker. Marijuana at all, you’re going to jail.

8. Bobby Jindal is running for president in 2012.

7. I’m not voting for him.

6. Neither is the rest of the country after his Mr. Rogers impression.

5. Capitalism is more dangerous than socialism.

4. Greed in a free society is more dangerous than piracy.

3. Taking a semester off from doing something you love to refocus study habits pays off in the end.

2. Taking a year and a half off school to refocus after tragedy pays off a year and a half after returning.

1. Fear the hat.

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My 22nd birthday present — no more cable

Before we start, let’s have a moment of silence for Molière, who died 326 years ago today.

Do any of you know how it feels to have the government steal the flavor out of your birthday?

I do.

Today, February 17th, is my birthday, and the government has been planning a huge present not just for me, but for everyone watching cable television.

Today was supposed to be the day the analog signal died as the country switches to digital television.

It felt good for a while to see commercials for the transition, especially the one where they display the date “February 17th” stretching across the entire screen over a major metropolitan skyline.

The voiceover would then bellow, “Are you ready for February 17th?”

It felt really good to know so many people cared.

Alas, it wasn’t for me — or Michael Jordan, Lupe Fiasco or Paris Hilton, whose birthdays also land on the 17th — it was for television.

Meanwhile, I finally have my own “less than 1 percent” issue to anger me about President Obama’s economic stimulus.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — known to most as the economic stimulus package — provides an additional $650 million for coupons for those still watching television on analog sets. The digital converter boxes — between $40 and $80 — were initially funded by the Department of Commerce, but customers were still short of coupons, according to the Senate Web site.

The Department of Commerce reached its $1.34 billion spending limit, potentially leaving millions with snow on their sets after the transition. The House of Representatives followed the Senate’s lead in postponing the digital switch until June 12, saying many weren’t ready for the switch.

Regardless of the necessity of coupons, as anyone purchasing cable or satellite television is already prepared for the switch, another question is raised from the postponement of the transition.

Do we really need cable television anymore?

Aside from watching live news or sports events, there’s no point to watch cable in the Internet age.

Many Web sites, like Hulu.com, provide free television shows and movies with ads interspersed. As a product of last year’s Writers’ Strike, networks and Web sites have created a means for artistic products to be properly compensated with one 30-second ad between scenes.

Instead of a three-minute commercial break, viewers are treated to one 30-second commercial dividing the scenes.

With some appearing at least 12 hours before the original airing, major network Web sites stream their television shows on their sites with the same ad model, capitalizing on revenue from the ads and providing TV watchers a free, legal way to enjoy their favorite television shows.

This move in the correct direction will naturally reduce piracy, as many will log on to their favorite show’s Web site and watch it there, in lieu of illegally downloading the series from a torrent Web site and risking disconnected Internet or even a lawsuit.

In short, there’s no reason to pay for cable television anymore.

As pleasing as it may be to have Ren and Stimpy available on your DVR, chances are you can find it online for free.

Congress and the president should work harder to make this more of a reality. The Internet provides a tremendous boon in terms of consumer content, and our new direction should reflect ever-changing, yet ever-present, realities.

While I finally have an issue with an item in Obama’s stimulus package, he’s giving me a silver lining.

He’s signing the entire bill into law today in Denver.

On the 22nd anniversary of my birth, a new America is born.

Be sure to tune in.

Originally published in The Daily Reveille...

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Health Center should change channel from Fox News

Are we truly beyond the notion of any other television network illuminating the pale beige walls of the Student Health Center?

I'm old enough to understand a couple of things.

I know what happens when you feed a squirrel a piece of bread - unless you have a whole loaf, you will inevitably piss off a massive group of squirrels ready to throw their vegetarian values out the window for the sake of whole wheat.

I know Febreze was sent to us by the grace of whichever God you believe in.

I even know how to recognize and interpret lies when they're fed to me.

But I still don't get why the Student Health Center lobby is somewhat infatuated with showing Fox News to patients waiting to see a doctor.

What are they trying to do to us? What is the ultimate goal?

An increase in anxiety?

I reached the age of intelligent and engaging discourse at the age of 14 and have been able to pick up on both distortions of the truth and outright lies.

And Fox News never fails to deliver.

Whenever I visit the Health Center, it's there, waiting for me like a continuous loop on hell's television, asking me to believe that a story about a missing girl in Nevada with questionable MySpace.com pictures is more important to the American conversation than the economy or immigration.

I'm asked to listen to anyone from Steve Doocy to resident sex pot Megyn Kelly - go to YouTube.com to find out why.

And Cavuto, Cavuto, Cavuto.

Neil Cavuto once described "Happy Feet" as an animated "An Inconvenient Truth" because of its "insidious 'far-left' political propaganda."

Michelle Malkin, a Fox News contributor only by virtue of having a Web site called Michellemalkin.com, wrote for Townhall.com this past Wednesday about "Snob-ama," starting her column with a simple phrase, "The odor of elitism is like onion breath: It's quick to acquire, hard to mask."

What's lost in this comment about Sen. Barack Obama's recent "charges of elitism" is simple: It's now an insult to be considered elite, when as recently as 10 minutes ago, being "elite" in a particular field was a good thing. An incredible thing.

An "elite" thing, if you will.

But Fox News isn't the only entity "charging" Obama with "elitism." Just look at self-proclaimed populist Lou Dobbs from CNN, who recently said,"We don't need another Ivy League-educated knuckle-head." As a graduate of Harvard in 1967, Dobbs is one to talk.

Getting back to my point, I still don't understand why the students of this University are subjected to a daily song-and-dance from the lowest of today's "info-tainment" culture.

This sort of game has no place in the waiting room of the University's Health Center. But this raises a question as to why the channel is on in the first place.

I could understand if many of the alpha dogs on this campus needed a pick-me-up while waiting to see if they have ADD. If they can focus their attention on the long legs and savage beauty that is Megyn Kelly and feel better, it's clear they don't have ADD or a girlfriend.

But what is the motivation behind having the television tuned in to Fox News in the Health Center? Is it torture? Is it a secret neurological study on how the brain works? Or is it, more understandably, the way Dick Cheney would want it?

If you've ever been vice president and shot a man in the face while hunting wing-less quail, this story might relate to you.

In a memo sent out on official vice-presidential letterhead, Dick Cheney made a list of suite demands for whenever he stays in a hotel on official business. Among some of the stipulations, Cheney insists that all of the televisions be preset to Fox News.

Not C-SPAN, where he could at least pretend to be interested in the grumblings within the Senate - of which he is president.

Also included in his suite demands are four cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite. If traveling with his wife, Lynne, a portion of Perrier should be provided - all-too curious considering that according to Fox News, we're all supposed to be boycotting France right now.

I suggest that, instead of Fox News, a program should be shown in the waiting room of the Health Center that puts the patient more at ease. I could understand the justification of Fox News if someone told me that Fox News makes the patient want to feel better doing daily activities rather than suffering in the lobby.

Maybe then I could understand.

Until that happens, a change is long overdue. Those in charge of the situation need to get their hands on the remote and end the suffering being addressed in their lobby.

I'm just saying we would feel better sooner with less Bill O'Reilly and more Blue's Clues.

Originally published in The Daily Reveille...

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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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