From out of nowhere, the Chi town repping rapper and activist Lupe Fiasco just dropped of this bomb! Following the very dope Friend Of The People mixtape (which you can download here), Wasulu took to his twitter moments ago to let go of “American Terrorist III”. Food And Liquor 2 on the way? Press play now!
Listen To: Lupe Fiasco – “American Terrorist III” | Download
Seriously Lupe stays killing it and I can’t wait to hear what he has in store for us in 2012. Salute Mr Fiasco!
You are invited to enter our 2012 competition by sending your stories, gaining the chance to win one of the prizes kindly donated by our sponsors - and helping a worthwhile charity.
First Prize £500
Second £200
Third £100
Entry Fee £7 per story (100% going to the Charity’s work)
We are hugely grateful to Patricia Ferguson for agreeing to adjudicate the Bridgwater Home-Start 2012 Prize.
Patricia is a prize-winning novelist whose books and short stories have achieved recognition with the Betty Trask Prize; the Somerset-Maugham Award; and (twice) nomination for the Orange Prize. She was recently one of the judges for the Bristol Short Story Competition.
Patricia will undertake the judging from a shortlist of ten stories selected by a team of experienced readers. A Trustee of the Charity will oversee the preliminary assessment of entries and the secure filing and recording of authors’ details.
The winners will be announced in a ceremony at Bridgwater Arts Centre on Saturday 24th March 2012. Shortlisted authors will be notified in advance. Results and (with permission from the authors) the prizewinning stories will be published on the website.
Donations
Thanks to the generosity of sponsors and of all the volunteers who will be running this competition (including Patricia Ferguson, who has waived any payment for her professional services), the whole of your entry fee will be devoted to the Charity’s work for families in Bridgwater and the surrounding rural communities.
As a writer entering the competition, you might like to consider topping up your entry charge with a further donation to Homestart's funds.
Blue Mesa Review is a literary magazine put out annually by the creative writing department at the University of New Mexico. We accept submissions of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction from all over the country.
To submit Poetry, Fiction, or Non-Fiction to BMR follow the instructions below!
As always, the Blue Mesa Review accepts previously unpublished work in Fiction (up to 30 pages), Non-Fiction (up to 30 pages) , Poetry (3-5 poems), Book Reviews, and Interviews.
Simultaneous submissions are okay, but let us know if you have it placed elsewhere. Also, please do not send multiple submissions. In other words, please wait for us to respond to your manuscript before sending another.
Formatting is the usual, typed, double-spaced, and brief cover letter. Please make sure your name is on the first page of your manuscript.
We are now accepting electronic submissions ONLY. Please click on the link to be automatically redirected to our online submission manager! Submit to Blue Mesa Review
As of March 1, 2011, we are no longer accepting snail mail submissions. Any questions or requests you’d like to mail to our editors should be sent to the following address:
Blue Mesa Review Department of English MCS 03-2170 University of New Mexico Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001
Manuscripts sent to this address will be recycled.
2012 Fiction Contest Guidelines:
1st Prize = PUBLICATION and $1,000
Runners up will receive an honorable mention and a chance at publication.
Entry Fee: $17
Requirements: Original, unpublished fiction, 7000 words or less.
The Judge: Kate Braverman
ENTRY DEADLINE: BY DECEMBER 31st 2011
2012 Poetry Contest Guidelines:
Contest Judge: Dana Levin
All unpublished poetry manuscripts of 5 poems maximum will be
considered.
The winner will receive $750 and publication in Blue Mesa Review Issue 25, and two copies
of issue 25.
Please submit and pay $17 online to our new online submission manager
NSEMIA: 2063: Kenya @ 100 Short Story and Essay Contest
Nsemia Inc. Publishers announces 2063: Kenya @ 100 Short Story andEssay Contest that will run in the months of December 2011 and January2012. The contest intends to task writers’ imagination and thought topaint a picture of the country at 100 years of age.
Predicting the future has its dangers, but writers are encouraged totake creative license and imagine the journey to the 100th birthday ofthe country: its socio-economics, politics/freedoms, urban/ruralsociety, pastoral/farming/working life, the family, relationships,marriage, divorce, births, deaths, child/ health care,, educationsystem, science/ research/ technology/ inventions; the young/old, nameit! Think of how Kenya would have changed and the society that itwould become.
Writers are free to choose their style of presentation (persuasive, comparative, descriptive, narrative or otherwise) dictated by scenes,events, places, personalities, conditions and the like. Writers’ aimis to tell an interesting, logical story that grips readers’attention. Preference will be given to short stories and essays thatare believable with high creative elements, readable, and able to holdthe interest of the reader; stories that paint a comprehensive picturethe state of life of the time.
The awards for the winning five essays are $1000, $750, $500, $250 and$100, respectively. In addition the top five winners will be offeredpublishing contracts for book length versions of their essays andshort stories. The next 20 essays will be published an anthology 2063:Kenya at 100 Perspectives. We are actively seeking sponsors to broadenthe award categories as such more awards will be announced as we getrespective sponsors.
The contest report will be published as a book of between 100 and 150pages, featuring the top 25 contestant profiles and abstracts of theirshort stories and essays. Other report content will include ahistorical background of Kenya and developments to date, highlightingmajor milestones in the making of the Kenyan nation.
Further, the report will have short history the Kenyan literary sceneand ongoing trends; and opinions on the future of Kenyan literature inthe face of globalization. A few chosen works from the Kenyan literaryscene and (where relevant) from outside the country will be featured.
There is limited advertising space for entities wishing to advertisein the contest report.
Opportunities for participation include being a sponsor, a contestantor a judge/reviewer.
Proposed categories for sponsorship include Top Female Contestant; TopContestant Under 18 ; Top Urban Contestant; Top Urban Contestant Over18 ; Top Contestant from rural Kenya; Top Contestant from theDiaspora ; Top Contestant from the Diaspora under 18; Top MaleContestant over 65 years and Top Female Contestant Over 65 years; TopContestant on the subject of the girl child
Interested parties can get further information, including contest rules, sponsorship information, advertising and entry form from kenya2063@nsemia.com.
By now, S&A readers should be more than a little familiar with actress Zawe Ashton, and the numerous projects she's been a part of that have been highlighted on this site. Just yesterday, Tambay provided us with 2 new clips from Ashton's upcoming film Dreams Of A Life, directed by Carol Morley. I had the great pleasure of speaking with Ashton this week, for a revealing interview that provided answers to some very pressing questions.
Dreams Of A Life (2011)/ Carol MorleyJohnny Savage
Nobody noticed when Joyce Vincent died in her bedsit above a shopping mall in North London in 2003. Her body wasn’t discovered for three years, surrounded by Christmas presents she had been wrapping, and with the TV still on. Newspaper reports offered few details of her life - not even a photograph. Who was she? And how could this happen to someone in our day and age- the so-called age of communication? For her film Dreams of a Life, filmmaker Carol Morley set out to find out. Joyce may have died in tragic isolation, but Morley was not going to let her be forgotten. She placed adverts in newspapers, on the Internet, and on the side of a London taxi. What she finds out is extraordinary. A range of people that once knew Joyce help to piece together a portrait of the woman that became so forgotten. “She was very sweet, beautiful looking, a bit of a mystery. We weren’t too sure where she came from. It’s almost like she was a ghost, even then.” Dreams of a Life becomes as much about the people who remember her as it is about Joyce herself.
Dreams Of A Life is scheduled for a limited December 16th release in London, and will expand to several more cinemas through March2012, though exclusively in the U.K.
Earlier this week, I spoke to Zawe Ashton-- who is also currently serving as Writer-In-Residence for Clean Break, a company that helps rehabilitate women who are ex-offenders and at risk of offending through theatre education-- about Dreams Of A Life, and about a few other things that were on my mind. First and foremost, I needed to know how Ashton came to be involved with such an emotionally-charged project, and whether she actively persued the role, or if she was hand-picked.
"It was something that so weirdly feels like it was kind of sent to me, in a really weird way" Ashton told me on a phone call from London.
"I was doing a play at the time that the casting director was sort of taking Dreams of A Life on, and I was playing a woman who was afraid to leave her bedsit, which obviously has sort of weird crossovers with the story of Joyce. And he said, 'Look, there’s this project that’s coming up soon, and we think Zawe would be right.' And I heard about it, and I heard about the story, and my head just blew all the way off. I was gobsmacked because I live about 20 minutes from where she died, and I couldn’t believe that this story hadn’t made it up the bus route to where I was, you know. I thought it was criminal."
Johnny Savage
"Anyway, the project then disappeared because, I found out later, they were having all these troubles with financing, and stuff like that. So I was, like, 'Oh God, I really hope that that project gets made at some point.' And then it drifted away, and then came back to me a few months later, and just, all the stars are aligned. I got the material, the script, the story, and some research that Carol [Morley] had done, and I just sent my agent a message back just saying, 'This is me.' Because by then, it was kind of a closed chapter in my head, as far as casting was concerned. I was determined to do it."
"And because the play that I was doing was with Clean Break, I’ve kind of been spending this whole year, almost, with this company that were helping women in pretty much this exact same situation, and these circumstances as Joyce. So it was 'all roads led to Dreams Of A Life' for me. But I still had to work hard, and I still had to audition. But I knew it had to happen."
Fresh Meat (Channel 4)
S&A: Some weeks ago on our site, we touched on the subject of selective invisibility with regard to some black actors in the U.K. and abroad, following a news item that expressed one television writer's surprise at recently "discovering" your talents on Channel 4's Fresh Meat. I believe the exact wording was something along the lines of "Where has Zawe Ashton been hiding?" When you saw that quote, what were your initial thoughts about it? Did the S&A story about the quote cause you to interpret it any differently?
Zawe Ashton: Do you know what? It’s so interesting, because my initial reaction was happiness. Because I’d been feeling for a while that I was sort of doing all of this work, but it wasn’t necessarily gaining the visibility that I had hoped. I did this big budget action movie with Jason Statham [Blitz], and all these amazing British actors—Paddy Considine, Aidan Gillen, Mark Rylance—and I was the female lead. And, I suppose, I couldn’t put the fact that I had done that, and the fact that I wasn’t necessarily reaching a higher level of visibility, together.
But, again, I didn’t really think any more about it beyond just being happy that someone was praising me and taking that moment to put me out there. And then I read your amazing piece that you wrote. And all of a sudden, different cogs started to wear in my head, not even necessarily to do with that one journalist and that one quote. But like you do in your piece, opening up that wider thing of “Hold on a minute. Whoa—I haven't been hiding. I have really, really been doing the opposite of that. I’ve been putting myself out there and doing everything I can, along with my fantastic agent, to create really quality work with varying roles each time. We’ve been working damned hard, and so, yeah, I did start to think, "Hold on a minute. What other wider repercussions of this, of people not knowing necessarily where I have been or where I am or . . . that can sometimes feed into where I’m going to.” You know?
S&A: For many years now, we've heard numerous accounts from black actors in the U.K regarding the difficulty of landing acting roles, let alone quality ones. What is your personal view on the state of the black actor in the U.K.?
Z.A.: I should probably say, first and foremost, that I am mixed-race. I am bi-racial. My mum is Ugandan, my dad is English. And so I think there is a difference sometimes in terms of how people are classified here and in the States. Here we have an easier grasp a lot of the time of where our immediate roots might be. You know, whether we’re African, or West Indian. Where as in America, it feels like sometimes that if you’re a shade darker than white, then you’re black, you know? Which is something I definitely identify with. But I think it would be silly to pretend that the same goes for over here, because it doesn’t.
I want to be part of that wider struggle, of the black U.K. actor struggle. However, I think I should probably be tentative to the fact that someone black might turn around to me and say, “Listen—you're not black.” At which point I would have to say, “No. You’re right.” I am mixed-race, and we do have those different definitions here. But I am someone who does definitely fly the flag. I mean ask anyone who knows me, in terms of my writing and my work, my acting work. But I fly the flag for the black British actor, and I’m very much happy to be in that camp. But I’m also aware that there will be times when maybe I’m getting more of a break than some of my sisters in this industry.
Second, overwhelmingly how I feel, and also talking to my peers in this industry, is that the roles are just not there. You feel like perhaps you can get to a certain point of working consistently, and doing good work. But you just don’t know when that glass ceiling might descend, you know; when you might just feel yourself hitting your head up against that glass ceiling and be like, “Whoa. Ok, this has dried up.” It never really feels like there is a huge consistency, in terms of, “Ok, I’ve done this one great role. That should then lead to another fantastic role.” Because sometimes that role just isn’t waiting for you. You know, it’s a real lottery.
One of my friends said that it feels like we’re on the ladder, but we still have like 80% to go, you know? So we’re there. It feels like we’re here, but it’s just that forward motion, that forward movement, that it sometimes feels doubtful. That seems to be the main thing. And all of a sudden something like Wuthering Heights, which came out just now, Andrea Arnold’s film, casting a black actor as Heathcliff. You know, “Wow!” Your head kind of starts worrying, because you’re like, “Yes. We have been in this country for centuries, and we do belong in period drama.” We seem to recycle period dramas that focus on worlds where we do not exist, unless it’s in a serving position. And we all know that we’ve been here inventing and travelling, for a much longer period of time.
So, the other thing is the writing and the roles, and the programming, in that sense. I, for myself, have to speak extremely carefully, with my foot in two worlds, you know. I’ve been blessed, with a capital “B”, for the past—God knows how many—years since I left drama school. I have been able to have this as my job, as my bread, and as my creativity. All three—that hardly ever happens, you know? I get that I’ve had some fantastic roles, I’m able to pay my rent, and I feel like I’m moving forward. But it saddens me when I look outside of that, and I don’t see that happening for enough people.
S&A: Here in the U.S., your film Blitz was released on DVD this summer. This film, along with Dreams of a Life, shows that you definitely are capable of taking on darker, more serious roles than that of Vod on Fresh Meat. Is the dramatic route where you see your career going in the future? Or are you still going to remain open to doing comedy and other light-hearted fare?
Z.A.: For me, what seems to have become very apparent about my career, as it builds, is that if I try and pin it down, it will wiggle away. And remaining open and changeable, and, I guess, somewhat chameleon-like, is beginning to look like my strength.
I think my career, right from the get-go, especially in film, has been on a knife edge. I got cast in St. Trinians II and Blitz simultaneously. I think maybe days apart from each other. And I put my hands up, and was just like, “Hallelujah. This is exactly where I thought my career would go.” Which is, literally, playing a school-girl shooting, kind of, slingshots by day, and running around and being funny and light-hearted, to—sometimes I would literally go from there to the set of Blitz in the evening, and play a crack-addicted policewoman. And I’m happy walking that line, I think. I don’t want to be pinned down, and I don’t want to sit in a box.
And I think that’s just kind of where I live; there is no comedy without drama or tragedy, certainly. And I don’t think there is tragedy without light-heartedness and comedy. You need them to live side by side, like shade. Otherwise you go into a two-dimensional world—for my money. And I’m all about 3-D. So I hope my career will continue down both paths, and that no point will someone say, “You are now a comedy actress. You must only do comedy” or “You are a dramatic actress. You must only do drama.” I’m not going to let that happen.
S&A: You have had a very busy year, also co-starring in the BBC's Case Histories, which was broadcast here in the U.S. this fall, and was well received. Can you tell us if we will have an opportunity to see more of you as Deborah in a second series?
Z.A.: I hope so! There’s very, very serious talk about a second series, and I would come back and do it in a heartbeat. Because I really, really like the Deborah character, and I think Jason Isaacs is just fantastic, as well. And as the lead in this series, he’s enjoying a lot of success in the States. Now, with this show that he’s doing—which he was actually auditioning for when we were filming Case Histories—it’s going to be, I’m sure, hard to get Jason into some sort of schedule over here. But—fingers crossed—I would love to come back and do it. And I’m so happy it’s been well received over there, because, actually, someone said to me while we were doing it, they were like, “We don’t really have characters like Deborah on U.K. TV.”
When I was creating the role—because it was initially a much smaller role—after I had gone in and read for it, and I guess kind of brought this comic twist to it, they said “Look, if Zawe signs on, we’ll right for her and we will make the role bigger and more prominent.” And so that was a huge compliment. So when you’ve got that type of enthusiasm behind you, you always kind of want to go where the love is, as well. I would happily go back because they were so forthcoming in choosing me, and wanting me to ad-lib around the lines. And, you know, they really trusted me with this role, and I knew that I wanted to create a role that maybe hadn’t been seen in a drama like that before. She’s very vivid, her dress sense is big, her presence is very big. And I think that’s something you guys do over in the U.S. much, much better than here. So I definitely had things like Ugly Betty in my mind when I was going into that role, because I kind of like how she’s slightly larger-than-life, but also somehow fits into the show. You know, you can suspend your disbelief a little bit with her. And she has a razor-sharp wit, and she’s a woman, she’s strong, and you guys do that much better there than we do here. So I kind of approached it from a U.S. perspective. So, yeah, I’m really glad that it’s gone down well out there. It’s a good platform for me, I hope.
S&A: As more U.K. film and TV projects gain exposure in the U.S. (through BBC America, PBS, Hulu, etc.) are you personally optimistic about the possibility of raising your own profile and reaching a broader audience? And will S&A readers in the U.S. see you make a leap similar to that of your peers (Idris Elba, David Oyelowo, Naomie Harris, Eamonn Walker, etc.) who have found considerable success working in the U.S.?
Z.A.: Yes, it is! I’m just kind of, like, I don’t know . . . kind of like of a racehorse just before the pistol goes. At the moment, I’m so ready to go--U.S.-wise-- now. And the fact that I have these projects, which are just-- thank God-- falling into place in terms of some kind of positioning of my profile in the U.S., is amazing. I can’t wait, because I think that the way to go to the U.S. is with something behind you. Because when I come, I’m not coming to play around. I’m coming to make my presence known. So it feels great that there are things in my arsenal that kind of giving me a stronger foothold there, definitely. Again, some of which I found out by accident. But I’m just so glad that I’m becoming a little bit visible out there. On the back of Blitz, I had some amazing meetings in New York. Earlier this year we were holding meetings at Glamour and Vogue, and GQ, and people were beginning to sort of know who I was. And maybe not know who I was, but beginning to believe the hype, if that makes sense. It’s kind of hard to get across the threshold at a lot of those places, but I managed to get across the threshold. I want to work hard, and I want to do quality roles and you have them there. We have them, but you have them more. Someone like Viola Davis is someone who I look up to massively, as an actress who already has an Oscar nomination under her belt for a tiny part in a film. But, she got honored for that. And again, more visibility means more change. And I just think she’s just the most stunning actress. Stunning. Just so much integrity.
I follow Oprah on Twitter, and she’s always coming out with some amazing quotes. She just the other day tweeted “Excellence is the only way to combat ignorance.” And I live by that, definitely. And the U.S. is somewhere that promotes excellence; to be the best you can be; positivity; “Get to the top”, “Oh, you went that far? You can go further. You can go all the way.” And I love being around that. All of my trips that I’ve had to America in the past couple of years have left me just buzzing, so that’s definitely on the card for next year. If you want me, I’ll come. And Dreams of A Life, Oprah needs to see this film. We’re thinking of ways to get it to her because we think that there is a huge community . . . the black community in America will find an affinity with this film, for sure.
What I love about British actors like Idris Elba and Eamonn Walker, who are friends of mine, is that they do bring something back. They come out there, and they use what they get out there to also bring something back. I don’t want to sound like “Thanks for all the love England. See ya!” It’s like, you’ve got to stretch your wings and then come back. I heard an amazing quote years ago, and I don’t know where it’s from, but it’s about mothers. But I think it can be applied to anything. “Mothers give you two things; they give you roots, and they give you wings.” And I think that quote can be definitely applied to London, or the U.K. . . . that it gives me roots, but I also hope that it gives me wings.
Warner's latest book is We've Got Issues: Children and Parents in the Age of Medication.
It was perhaps inevitable that the political moment that has given birth to the Occupy movement, pitting Main Street against Wall Street and the 99% against the financial elite, would eventually succeed in making some chinks in the armor of the 1%’s favorite feel-good hobby: the school reform movement.
It’s been a good decade now that the direction of school reform has been greatly influenced by a number of highly effective Master (and Mistress) of the Universe types: men and women like Princeton grad Wendy Kopp, the founder of the Teach for America program, her husband, Harvard graduate Richard Barth, who heads up the charter school Knowledge Is Power Program, the hard-charging former D.C. schools chancellor (and Cornell and Harvard grad) Michelle Rhee and the many hedge fund founders who are now investing significant resources in the cause of expanding charter schools. Excoriating the state of America’s union-protected teaching profession and allegedly ossified education schools, they’ve prided themselves upon attracting “the best and the brightest” to the education reform cause, whether by luring recent top college graduates into challenging classrooms or by seducing Harvard Business School or McKinsey-trained numbers-crunchers away from Wall Street to newly lucrative executive positions in educationally themed social entrepreneurship.
The chief promise of their brand of reform — the results of which have been mixed, at best — seems to be that they can remake America’s students in their own high-achieving image. By evaluating all students according to the same sort of testable rubrics that, when aced, propelled the reformers into the Ivy League and beyond, society’s winners seem to believe they can inspire and guide society’s losers, inoculating them against failure with their own habits of success, and forever disproving the depressingly fatalistic ’70s-style liberal idea that things like poverty and poor health care and hunger and a chaotic family life can, indeed, condemn children to school failure.
And yet as schools scramble to keep up with these narrow demands, voices are emerging to suggest that perhaps the rubric-obsessed school reform game, as it’s been played in the Bush and Obama years and funded and dressed-up by the well-heeled Organization Kids, is itself perhaps due for a philosophical shake-up.
Earlier this year, S. Paul Reville, the Massachusetts Secretary of Education, blogged in Education Week that reformers need now to think beyond the numbers and “admit that closing achievement gaps is not as simple as adopting a set of standards, accountability and instructional improvement strategies.” In Massachusetts, he wrote, “We have set the nation’s highest standards, been tough on accountability and invested billions in building school capacity, yet we still see a very strong correlation between socioeconomic background and educational achievement and attainment. It is now clear that unless and until we make a more active effort to mitigate the impediments to learning that are commonly associated with poverty, we will still be faced with large numbers of children who are either unable to come to school or so distracted as not to be able to be attentive and supply effort when they get there.” Reville called for “wraparound services” that would allow schools to provide students with a “healthy platform” from which they could begin to work on learning.
Diane Ravitch, the education policy specialist and reformed charter school advocate, made the same argument in a trenchant New York Review of Booksarticle this fall, where she enumerated the many reasons that school reform as we’ve come to know it needs to be called into question. For one thing, like so much else “the best and the brightest” have brought us in recent years, many of the reform movement’s results don’t stand up to scrutiny. After reviewing the data, she writes: “Most research studies agree that charter schools are, on average, no more successful than regular public schools; that evaluating teachers on the basis of their students’ test scores is fraught with inaccuracy and promotes narrowing of the curriculum to only the subjects tested, encouraging some districts to drop the arts or other nontested subjects; and that the strategy of closing schools disrupts communities without necessarily producing better schools.”
Striking a serious blow to the contention that it’s bad teaching — not bad luck in life — that makes some American students perform much worse than others (and all of them much worse than students in other countries), Ravitch noted that on a recent international test, the Program for International Student Assessment, “American schools in which fewer than 10% of the students were poor outperformed the schools of Finland, Japan and Korea. Even when as many as 25% of the students were poor, American schools performed as well as the top-scoring nations. As the proportion of poor students rises, the scores of U.S. schools drop.”
In other words, more than good teachers, more than targeted testing, more than careful calibrations of performance measures and metrics that can standardize and quantify every aspect of learning, it’s the messy business of life — where a child comes from and what he or she goes home to at the end of the day — that really determines success in school. This message flies in the face of the pull-yourself-up-by-your-boostrap individualism, the extreme emphasis on private (read: teacher) responsibility that has animated the school reform movement in recent years. It demands a complete rethinking now of what our public response to the perennial crisis of public education in America should be.
Fortunately, there are some programs in place that have had real success in providing “wraparound services” that help children come to school ready to learn. In Northern California, for example, the Making Waves Foundation has for decades run a program providing tutoring, academic advising, college counseling, after school enrichment programs, mental health services, nutritional food, transportation and parent education to more than a thousand low-income children, selected by lottery. In Cincinnati, where more than 70% of children live in low-income households, a program called the Strive Partnership coordinates services and support for school children that include mentoring, health care, arts programs, quality preschool and financial aid for college — and the result, according to a new report from the independent think tank Education Sector, is that, over the last four years, Cincinnati schools have made greater gains than any other urban district in Ohio and have had the most success in reducing the percentage of its students who score at the very bottom on achievement tests.
The Obama Administration hasn’t been blind to these initiatives, and has committed $40 million to a new Promise Neighborhoods program that seeks to link family support services to schools. But, the Education Sector report notes, that initiative is unlikely to receive the $150 million the Administration requested for 2012, given that its 2011 budget request of $210 million was cut down to $30 million.
Thinking structurally about social ills, rejecting excessive individualism for community-based, it-takes-a-village-style responsibility, has been out of favor in America for a long time. In education reform, what’s been in style instead is vilifying teachers and their unions. For some schools, making the grade has meant cooking the books to show results. Let’s hope that the time to reform this business-modeled mindset has finally come.
Touré's latest book Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? was named a New York Times notable book of 2011.
There’s nothing wrong with you if you reach the age called “marriage o’clock,” and you’re still not married. It’s complex finding someone and getting that relationship to the altar and beyond. I’m no marriage expert, but I’m in a happy marriage with our seventh anniversary around the corner. My parents are in one, too: their 43rd anniversary just passed. The effort to make it work and the problems we have and those we’ve worked through have led me to a few thoughts on what you can do to make your relationship a little more weather-proof. In order to make a couple survive, you must put it ahead of self. Love or destiny or fate simply won’t carry you. If a relationship is a nation, then it’s patriotic to do selfless things that will help the relationship, such as:
1. Know that the grass ain’t greener Don’t look at other couples and think they have it all together while you and your mate don’t. That’ll just make you feel bad about your relationship and drag you down. Those smiling people who look like they have it all do have it all — including problems. You just have no idea what they are. And don’t look at individuals you’re not with and think you could have a better relationship with them. It’s easy to fantasize that the sexy acquaintance with whom you have a buzzy rapport with would make a hot, fun, trouble-free girlfriend, but she’s just someone whose problems you don’t know yet. Love the one you’re with, and work through the problems you know.
2.Fight fair! Every relationship will run into potholes, but the difference between a lasting one and one that runs aground can be the nature of how you fight. Are you using those heavy conversations to work on resolving problems or dumping negative emotion and resentment onto your partner? Fighting fair means those difficult conversations can be more productive and probably last less time. How can you do that? Many thoughts. First, constrain yourself to the specific disagreement and the particular moment you’re disagreeing about. Don’t make it into a referendum on your entire relationship and start linking to other issues you have. Don’t bring up old fights or points of disagreement. Avoid words like always and never which make the problem impossible to address. The more you can segregate each conflict, the more productive the conversation can be.
Every good couple knows how to push each other’s buttons and when your partner makes you mad you mash their buttons to get them back. Work hard at not doing this. It’s easy to agree to when you’re happy and easy to give in to the temptation of when you’re mad. Restrain yourself. It’s horrible for the couple.
Avoid with all your might escalating the conflict. A couple will be discussing something at one tone and then someone will say something — a curse word or a diss or a nasty generalization or an aggressive, leading string of words like “What’s your problem?” or anything said in a tone that raises the anger and the stakes. Any of that elevates the interaction to another level of acrimony. Don’t be an escalator. When couples fight there’s no possibility of an individual winner. Either the couple grows stronger or it doesn’t.
Also, grudges are like relationship tumors so develop couples’ amnesia, i.e., after you address the problem try to forget about it. I was out to dinner with my parents a few weeks ago and my dad said something that really annoyed my mom but within two minutes she had forgotten it and was laughing with him about something else. I’ve seen him do that for her before. Their relationship amnesia helps make sure their good times are not ruined by one wrong note. That’s healthier than holding on to grievances or keeping a running tab of them.
3. Be good, giving and game That’s what Dan Savage says each member of a couple owes the other in the bedroom. Be good — talented at sexual techniques or at least enthusiastic and eager to learn. Be giving — selfless and looking to please. And be game — up for anything. A skilled partner who’s generous and willing to explore new ideas is worth their weight in gold. I have definitely had relationships where quality in the bedroom made me far more willing to deal with problems outside the bedroom. It’s not a get out if jail free card, but it can make it clearer what you’re fighting for.
4. Never stop flirting You can never look at the relationship as settled — it’s something you have to always work at. Not just in terms of always trying to be a better partner but always flirting with your partner and chasing them and courting them as you did when you could count the number of dates you’d had on your fingers. Keep flirting. Keep winning them over.
5.Find mentors Everyone knows the value of mentors in business but what about in romance? It’s extremely valuable having an older couple to talk to about the problems you’re having which they’ve probably already had. One thing you’ll find is that in some ways you’re pretty much going through the same relationship they went through. This is comforting because it lets you know most people aren’t any happier than you are. If you know that, then you might as well stay and fight for in the relationship you’re in.
You want to get married. It's taken a while to admit it. Saying it out loud -- even in your mind -- feels kind of desperate, kind of unfeminist, kind of definitely not you, or at least not any you that you recognize. Because you're hardly like those girls on TLC saying yes to the dress and you would never compete for a man like those poor actress-wannabes on The Bachelor.
You've never dreamt of an aqua-blue ring box.
Then, something happened. Another birthday, maybe. A breakup. Your brother's wedding. His wife-elect asked you to be a bridesmaid, and suddenly there you were, wondering how in hell you came to be 36-years-old, walking down the aisle wearing something halfway decent from J. Crew that you could totally repurpose with a cute pair of boots and a jean jacket. You started to hate the bride -- she was so effing happy -- and for the first time ever you began to have feelings about the fact that you're not married. You never really cared that much before. But suddenly (it was so sudden) you found yourself wondering... Deep, deep breath... Why you're not married.
Well, I know why.
How? It basically comes down to this: I've been married three times. Yes, three. To a very nice MBA at 19; a very nice minister's son at 32 (and pregnant); and at 40, to a very nice liar and cheater who was just like my dad, if my dad had gone to Harvard instead of doing multiple stints in federal prison.
I was, for some reason, born knowing how to get married. Growing up in foster care is a big part of it. The need for security made me look for very specific traits in the men I dated -- traits it turns out lead to marriage a surprisingly high percentage of the time. Without really trying to, I've become a sort of jailhouse lawyer of relationships -- someone who's had to do so much work on her own case that I can now help you with yours.
But I won't lie. The problem is not men, it's you. Sure, there are lame men out there, but they're not really standing in your way. Because the fact is -- if whatever you're doing right now was going to get you married, you'd already have a ring on it. So without further ado, let's look at the top six reasons why you're not married.
1. You're a Bitch. Here's what I mean by bitch. I mean you're angry. You probably don't think you're angry. You think you're super smart, or if you've been to a lot of therapy, that you're setting boundaries. But the truth is you're pissed. At your mom. At the military-industrial complex. At Sarah Palin. And it's scaring men off.
The deal is: most men just want to marry someone who is nice to them. I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband. Here's what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn't think so. You've seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man's fear and insecurity in order to get married -- but actually, it's perfect, since working around a man's fear and insecurity is big part of what you'll be doing as a wife. 2. You're Shallow. When it comes to choosing a husband, only one thing really, truly matters: character. So it stands to reason that a man's character should be at the top of the list of things you are looking for, right? But if you're not married, I already know it isn't. Because if you were looking for a man of character, you would have found one by now. Men of character are, by definition, willing to commit.
Instead, you are looking for someone tall. Or rich. Or someone who knows what an Eames chair is. Unfortunately, this is not the thinking of a wife. This is the thinking of a teenaged girl. And men of character do not want to marry teenaged girls. Because teenage girls are never happy. And they never feel like cooking, either. 3. You're a Slut. Hooking up with some guy in a hot tub on a rooftop is fine for the ladies of Jersey Shore -- but they're not trying to get married. You are. Which means, unfortunately, that if you're having sex outside committed relationships, you will have to stop. Why? Because past a certain age, casual sex is like recreational heroin -- it doesn't stay recreational for long.
That's due in part to this thing called oxytocin -- a bonding hormone that is released when a woman a) nurses her baby and b) has an orgasm -- that will totally mess up your casual-sex game. It's why you can be f**k-buddying with some dude who isn't even all that great and the next thing you know, you're totally strung out on him. And you have no idea how it happened. Oxytocin, that's how it happened. And since nature can't discriminate between marriage material and Charlie Sheen, you're going to have to start being way more selective than you are right now.
4. You're a Liar. It usually goes something like this: you meet a guy who is cute and likes you, but he's not really available for a relationship. He has some condition that absolutely precludes his availability, like he's married, or he gets around town on a skateboard. Or maybe he just comes right out and says something cryptic and open to interpretation like, "I'm not really available for a relationship right now."
You know if you tell him the truth -- that you're ready for marriage -- he will stop calling. Usually that day. And you don't want that. So you just tell him how perfect this is because you only want to have sex for fun! You love having fun sex! And you don't want to get in a relationship at all! You swear! About ten minutes later, the oxytocin kicks in. You start wanting more. But you don't tell him that. That's your secret -- just between you and 22,000 of your closest girlfriends. Instead, you hang around, having sex with him, waiting for him to figure out that he can't live without you. I have news: he will never "figure" this out. He already knows he can live without you just fine. And so do you. Or you wouldn't be lying to him in the first place.
5. You're Selfish. If you're not married, chances are you think a lot about you. You think about your thighs, your outfits, your naso-labial folds. You think about your career, or if you don't have one, you think about doing yoga teacher training. Sometimes you think about how marrying a wealthy guy -- or at least a guy with a really, really good job -- would solve all your problems.
Howevs, a good wife, even a halfway decent one, does not spend most of her day thinking about herself. She has too much s**t to do, especially after having kids. This is why you see a lot of celebrity women getting husbands after they adopt. The kids put the woman on notice: Bitch, hello! It's not all about you anymore! After a year or two of thinking about someone other than herself, suddenly, Brad Pitt or Harrison Ford comes along and decides to significantly other her. Which is also to say -- if what you really want is a baby, go get you one. Your husband will be along shortly. Motherhood has a way of weeding out the lotharios.
6. You're Not Good Enough. Oh, I don't think that. You do. I can tell because you're not looking for a partner who is your equal. No, you want someone better than you are: better looking, better family, better job.
Here is what you need to know: You are enough right this minute. Period. Not understanding this is a major obstacle to getting married, since women who don't know their own worth make terrible wives. Why? You can fake it for a while, but ultimately you won't love your spouse any better than you love yourself. Smart men know this.
I see this at my son's artsy, progressive school. Of 183 kids, maybe six have moms who are as cute as you're trying to be. They're attractive, sure. They're just not objects. Their husbands (wisely) chose them for their character, not their cup size.
Alright, so that's the bad news. The good news is that I believe every woman who wants to can find a great partner. You're just going to need to get rid of the idea that marriage will make you happy. It won't. Once the initial high wears off, you'll just be you, except with twice as much laundry.
Because ultimately, marriage is not about getting something -- it's about giving it. Strangely, men understand this more than we do. Probably because for them marriage involves sacrificing their most treasured possession -- a free-agent penis -- and for us, it's the culmination of a princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland.
The bottom line is that marriage is just a long-term opportunity to practice loving someone even when they don't deserve it. Because most of the time, your messy, farting, macaroni-and-cheese eating man will notbe doing what you want him to. But as you give him love anyway -- because you have made up your mind to transform yourself into a person who is practicing being kind, deep, virtuous, truthful, giving, and most of all, accepting of your own dear self -- you will find that you will experience the very thing you wanted all along:
Love.
Tracy McMillan is a TV writer whose credits include Mad Men and The United States of Tara. Her memoir I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway is now available in paperback from Harper Collins/It Books. She lives in Los Angeles with her 13-year-old son. Follow her on Twitter.
CELEBRATING THE RAINSThe Wodaabe nomads of Niger’s Sahel have spent much of the year moving camp nearly every day in search of ever rarer scorched pasture for their large herds oflong-horned zebus and sheep, each family on its own. They have spent interminable days and nights at the wells, waiting for their turns to pull up leather buckets of water for their thirsty herds.
Finally, since the beginning of August, the rains have come. For a few weeks they will flood the savanna under violent storms. Puddles and ponds are now glittering in every depression, and a soft breeze makes the short green grass shiver in the cool mornings. The acacia trees have hidden their long bone-colored thorns under a profusion of tiny green leaves. There is so much green grass and surface water around that the herds are now free to browse and drink with little human help.This is the time for families and clans to reunite and celebrate the rains with male dances, songs, and beauty contests. A time to wed and feast new babies.
Every day during this short blessed time of the year, and for the enjoyment of women,young Wodaabe men will endlessly sing and dance the Yakey, which is at once a male beauty contest within clans. Much later in the short season, the best-looking men will compete in the Gerewol dance and beauty contest against men of other clans. The elders will be their worst critics, never happy with the young dancers’ energy and endurance or with their looks. To the unfortunates whose appearance does not meet the criteria of these nomads—figure tall and slim, forehead high and convex, nose and lips thin, and white teeth and eye’s whites, to be displayed in comical grimaces, they are met with various forms of sarcasm. The men save no efforts in enhancing their looks, checking the results in small pocket mirrors.
Though the women’s role is limited to that of spectators, they work just as hard aslooking beautiful themselves, and in that they easily beat the men. Some are stunning.
Only the best-looking men dare represent their clans in the Gerewol, now witnessed by the whole tribe. The critical elders are now pitiless, going as far as threatening lacking dancers with fitting them with donkeys’ pack saddles.
So MTV (USA) announced that they’d be bringing back the oldie-but-goodie YO! MTV Raps! for a one-off special on December 4 2011. The classic show, which aired from 1988 to 1995, strongly influenced the spread of Hip-hop culture.
Tapped among the artists to appear are: Q-Tip, Scarface, Ice Cube, Wiz Khalifa, DJ Khaled, Questlove, Busta Rhymes, Mac Miller, Machine Gun Kelly, Young Jeezy, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Phife, Fat Joe, Common, Mike Epps, Ice-T, Meek Mill, Tyga and Naughty by Nature. As a bonus, DJ Premier will also be in the house to remix the iconic Yo! theme song.
So I was thinking, if we had our own special show, a YO! MTV Raps Africa, these are the people who would be on the show:
Waving Flag, his song used by Coca-Cola as part of their FIFA World Cup 2010 fanfare really brought K’naan to the mainstream worldwide, but his role as a spokesperson especially on the turmoil in Somalia even outside of his music is what has put him on the radar of the likes of Mos Def, and Nas and Damien Marley whom he toured with in 2010. Of late he’s featured on Western Union’s World of Betters program.
Tumi Molekane is arguably the country’s most accomplished lyricist and definitely its most travelled. (We reviewed his Whole Worlds album last year.) He is also the lead of his band Tumi and the Volume.
When you separate the Ghanaian shock duo the two MCs are a force to be reckoned with in their own right. They would bring a fun, frank vibe to the show. Check out their pioneering Pidgen Hip-hop musical Coz Ov Moni.
Banky W’s label Empire Mates Entertainment (E.M.E.) has Naija’s ”Star boy” as a signee, and could do much worse than this singing, rhyming young buck known also as the fastest rising player on Naija’s Hip-hop scene.
Based in Washington D.C., and born in his father’s native country Togo, this MC is not only born of afro-funk royalty, he is also the quintessential 360 artist: the Biology Masters’ graduate dabbles in fashion design, directs videos, and produces music for others as well as himself. Check out his The Summer Years LP, released this past September.
With his second L.P Immigrant Chronicles: Coming to America out now, the Ghana-born rapper has already stacked an impressive resume of people he has worked with – from Damon Albarn to Tumi, with whom he collaborated as one-third of the band A.R.M.
Southern African Motswako music came into its own with Jabulani Tsambo aka Hip-hop Pantsula at its helm. He made it hot to rhyme in Setswana, and he’s also made it a point in his career to actively promote pan-African Hip-hop collaborations, previously a rare thing.
Ten years into his rap career, Baloji’s profile has really taken off latterly as he plays up his Congolese heritage more prominently on the album Kinshasa Succursale.
If anyone fell sick before the show was filmed, I’d invite Wale and Tanzania’s Gsan and Nigeria’s Sauce Kid and M.I.
Who would make your YO! MTV Raps list? Please include francophone and Lusophone artists. And of course women!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A nomad-cum-journalist, Paula Rogo is a Brooklyn based Kenyan writer, photographer and videographer. This freewheeling and curious news-junkie has written for Reuters, Clutch Magazine and AOL Patch publications. She enjoys discovering the ins and outs of Africa with a special focus on African food. She hopes to treat her foodie habits to a whirlwind African food tour. For the time being Paula is happily hopping back and forth between New York’s skyscrapers, and Washington D.C.’s monuments planning her escape back to the continent. Follow me @rogo_p Read more from this author
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: A nomad-cum-journalist, Paula Rogo is a Brooklyn based Kenyan writer, photographer and videographer. This freewheeling and curious news-junkie has written for Reuters, Clutch Magazine and AOL Patch publications. She enjoys discovering the ins and outs of Africa with a special focus on African food. She hopes to treat her foodie habits to a whirlwind African food tour. For the time being Paula is happily hopping back and forth between New York’s skyscrapers, and Washington D.C.’s monuments planning her escape back to the continent. Follow me @rogo_p