Last month, the Department of Agriculture released the latest numbers on hunger in America, reporting that 50 million Americans are now hungry.

This is a staggering development. And for the last month or so, we’ve been told that the Great Recession (ahem, Depression) is over. However, I will not quibble with these facts. The algorithm has rebounded; the Dow is once again above 10,000.

Yet, food prices have been rising pretty consistently over the past couple of years. And while some have expressed serious concerns about food shortages and the cost of affordable food, which certainly puts a strain on struggling households, there are some positive indicators to the contrary. Science, has responded to our every need with it’s latest innovation: soggy pork.

The Telegraph reports:

Researchers in the Netherlands created what was described as soggy pork and are now investigating ways to improve the muscle tissue in the hope that one day people will eat it.

I shit you not.

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• What happened to Rap? “Im on a Boat” gets Grammy nod.

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Yesterday the Grammy nominations dropped and we saw everyone from Taylor Swift to Jay Z pick up a nod from the all powerful music awards show. But did anyone see this coming?

BEST RAP/SUNG COLLABORATION: LONELY ISLAND FT. T-PAIN “I’M ON A BOAT”

No, that ISN’T a typo. Are you not familiar with “I’m On a Boat”? Let me enlighten you.

The Spoof song about Rap excess featuring Rap’s excess king “T-Pain” (Dude wears a top hat and a chain that says “Big Ass Chain”) is now up against actual songs like Beyoncé & Kanye West “Ego”, Keri Hilson, Kanye West, & Ne-Yo “Knock You Down”, Jay-Z, Rihanna, & Kanye West “Run This Town”, T.I. & Justin Timberlake “Dead And Gone”…

So the question is, what does this say about the State of Hip Hop?

I hit up #TWITTER about this and received comments like “Thats my ‘ish!” (@Reetamac) and “Reasonable. And I hope they win.” (@spannerjaxs) but there was also outrage.

The question is, did the Grammy’s lose credibility, or did Rap lose it way before this? Another question “I” Was wondering was would the song have been nominated with out the participation of the Clown Prince #T-Pain? Did he give the song just enough credibility that it was a completely reasonable choice? Did he say anything on “I’m on a Boat” that was any more ridiculous than he has said on numerous other “Real” Rap songs?

“Poseidon, LOOK AT ME!”

“This is the Realist Shit I’ ever Wrote? Chillin’ in my Maybach”

“I’mma put my BMI all over your ASCAP, SHORTAY.”

At what point is the line drawn. If you can say “I’mma a flirt whether I’m in or out of town, thats why the call me Teddy Pinned-Her-Ass-Down” (Rapey Much?) and thats REAL then can we question “I’m on a Boat” seriously?

As one #Tweeter put it…

That’s the realest shit he ever wrote…

*Sidenote: I fully admit that whenever I am on some sort of floating object I will yell out “Posedon, Look at me” or “I ****D A MERMAID.” And will continue to do so…

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Listen, President Obama seems to be breaking hundreds of promises a day and we here at “This Week in Blackness” are tired of it. So we went and searched the web to find out about all the cast away hope the POTUS has been…er…CASTING AWAY.

Enter Politifact. You can now go and check, at any point in time

the current promises Obama is fulfilling, breaking or just hasnt gotten to yet. AND JUST AS THE GOP HAS LED US TO BELIEVE: HE’s BROKEN 7 PROMISES!

Wait…just 7? Really? I JUST KNEW he had to have gone back on any and everything he’s ever said. Just 7? Really? I expect at least 30 broken  simply because he’s a politician and have the stuff he said wasn’t really HIM saying.

7?

Really?

I don’t know what to do with all the faux rage I was storing.  I was planning a march. WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THESE PICKET SIGNS!

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Tiger Woods has privately embarrassed his wife, driven into fire hydrant following an incident of some kind, tried to sweep the situation away so as not to further embarrass himself or his wife or his kids publicly and wound up…embarrassing himself and his wife and his kids publicly.

Crappy few days for the world’s best golfer who had this to say on his website

I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart. I have not been true to my values and the behavior my family deserves. I am not without faults and I am far short of perfect. I am dealing with my behavior and personal failings behind closed doors with my family. Those feelings should be shared by us alone.

Not to get all conspiratorial but…this stinks of Phil Mickelson.

VOICEMAIL

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Maurice Clemmons, a Seattle man suspected of killing four police officers in the Lakewood police department, was shot early today on by an officer on a “routine patrol.”

Considering all the Blackness that happens, you might expect me to smell a conspiracy or some such, but I don’t. Clemmons apparently had one of the cops’ firearms and, according to the report, approached the officer who did what he needed to do. According to CNN

Clemmons was killed around 2:45 a.m. by a seven-year veteran of the Seattle police force who had noticed a parked stolen car that was unoccupied but running, said Jim Pugil, an assistant Seattle police chief.

The officer approached Clemmons outside the car and asked him to show his hands, but the suspect refused and started to run around the car, Pugil said.

The police officer, who recognized Clemmons from photographs, then shot and killed him, the assistant chief said.

I don’t think there was a conspiracy afoot but I do wonder about the routine patrol story. I get the sense this might’ve been a Bonnie and Clyde-type scenario with ’shoot on sight’ implications. Black dude kills four cops? Four? And takes one officer’s gun? You’re gonna  get folded up for that sort of thing.

I imagine every Black dude in Seattle with a goatee is breathing a sigh of relief right now.

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Twitter has been good to me. (Tempted to go the Sammy Sosa “berry berry good” route, but his recent bout with self-hatred needs to be addressed in a post of his very own later. I digress.) Through it, I’ve been connected with a number of creative people whose opinions I enjoy reading. Also, the nature of the medium itself, depending on whom you follow, means that folks are even better informed about important and pressing issues, such as Tiger’s car accident, L’il Wayne’s latest conquest(s), White House party crashers and…Worldwide AIDS Day!

Now, a post about AIDS Day is a hard thing to joke about. But Twitter, ironically, has given us an opening.

When you log on to the site today, you’ll notice that it’s basically an ad for Join(RED). And when you tweet #red, AIDS or HIV, your tweet turns red! Wow. Curing AIDS, one tweet at a time! Boy, I feel great…about myself.

See, my main problem with organizations like Join(RED) is that while they do good work under the surface, their superficiality and crass marketing undermine their cause. Forget about the fact that they try to make it fashionable to support AIDS research, as if we need a cool t-shirt or an annoying socially conscious Hallmark card to awaken our altruism. It’s the fact that they’ve helped the PR effort to equate Africa with AIDS.

Something that doesn’t help that effort? Making every tweet with “Africa” in the body come up red. Just like every tweet…yeah, you get the picture.

So, I can’t discuss Africa in any context without it being, essentially, equated or linked with AIDS? I mean, can you imagine the surprise some redneck Tweeter will have today when he tells some Black poster to “go back to Africa” and it pops up red? (Actually, a redneck might like that. But still.)

How in the hell does this happen? There are certain things that happen that make it apparent no Black person was in the room when someone decided to do it.

Deciding to hire Pat Buchanan at MSNBC.

Deciding Fred Armisen was the best guy to portray Barack Obama on SNL.

Greenlighting Norbit.

This, alas, is another one of them.

Join(RED), if you want to help Africa, stop making it seem like the world’s largest HIV petri dish. It has a huge problem with the disease, but so do we here in the United States. Sponsoring a, well, blushing of Twitter isn’t going to save anyone, especially when you make AIDS and Africa synonymous.

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Don’t know if you heard…

It seems that back in January 6 out of 10 Whites were big fan’s of President Obama. Now? Its some where around 39 percent. Obama was obviously waaay to Black for them.  He kept getting up and calling Hillary Clinton his “Secretary of my Bitches” and freestyling his White House Press conferences(When discussing debt he broke out into his Remix of Wayne’s smash hit “A Trilli, A Trilli”).  When asked about the whole Joe Wilson thing behind close doors he was quoted as saying “I wish a Nigga Would say dat shit in my face!” then he crip-walked.

Oh wait. None of that happened.

If you look closer at the poll for the most part the whole “White” thing goes along party lines. Although, if you are a Democrat and you don’t like Obama…you’re most likely white.

So of course we shall hear cries of  ”Black people rubber stamping everything Obama does” which…well.. is true…for SOME Black people. Sorry to break this to you folks, but with the guy walking into office with the shit storm a’la Dubya to deal with, a lot of Negroes (and some White’s alike) aren’t so quick to condemn the man. Especially with him being all historic n’ shit. I don’t know if you were aware of that whole historic thing. Sort of a big deal for some people…

I, on the other hand, do NOT rubber stamp President Obama. I also don’t ride on him to get those cool “I’m my own thinker!” points. He does some things I don’t like. I say it. He does somethings I don’t quite understand. I say it. What I DON’T do is throw the man under a bus at the first sign of trouble.  I will have plenty of time to RANT at the dude come…I dunno…around 2011? Right when he has to gear up? I’ll have a much better understanding of what the ‘eff he’s done…right OR wrong. #BreathePeoeple

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Dear R. Kelly,

I wasn’t in a very good mood…I mean I’m regularly not in a good mood (check out this site and videos, that guy’s not in a good mood) but this…this video…this shit right here…right here? HILARIOUS. I laughed right before my righteous indignation kicked in. For those not initiated, please, for the love of God, take a listen to this…

“Girl You make me wanna get you Pregnant” lay your body down

“Now usually i leave the club with a girl who has  a man,
and take her to hotel just for a one night stand.
See Im a p playa so i tryin’ to take her on no date,
but much like my Patron, Man I’m just trying to take it  straight.”

I… I… Where do I start…? This is like Roman Polanski making a movie about sexin’(verb) barely legal girls. It’s not ILLEGAL for him to sex barely legal girls, but it would be in terrible taste considering his…ahem..situation. Kellz just doesn’t care. This is an amazing example of shiny and bedazzled ignorance. Thats right, he took his regular day old ignorance and had bling added to it. Kellz thought “This just ain’t ignant enough, I want this shit to sparkle in the sunlight.”

Now you may say “Elon, this is a LOVE song. He wants to be with this girl!” Yes, he realized that right after he met this girl with unbelievable booty…oh and she was also a CUTIE. (See? It Rhymed. Kells is back to RHYMING. After his attempts in the “Closet” and “Real Talk” I thought he gave up on that.) Why is Tyreese in this song? Hasn’t he raped my good taste enough by being in BOTH Transformers movies? No he’s trying to coerce women with promises of fame? And THE DREAM? THE DREAM? The Dream is were Carbs go to die. He’s a lightskinneded bag of diabetes. He’s one step above Sean Kingston and he’s talking about getting chicks PREGNANT? And for the love of all things holy will SOMEONE revoke Robin Thicke’s Black Card?  He’s gone too far. TOO FAR MAN!

I’m done…possibly with this plane of existence.

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The big political story coming out of Atlanta for virtually EVERY “news” source seems to be the current Mayoral race between Mary Norwood and Kasim Reed.  Is it their controversial policies that are garnering nation wide coverage? Nope. Its the whole Negro V. White Lady thing.

“The race is between City Councilwoman Mary Norwood, who is white, and former state Sen. Kasim Reed, who is black. Norwood won 46% of the vote on Nov. 3rd, but needed 50% to win outright. Reed, who pulled in 36%, split the black vote in a crowded field of other African-American candidates.”

Well we know who voted for the WHITE WOMAN right? Cause if we know anything WE KNOW BROTHA’S BE VOTIN’ FOR THE WHITE LADY! (Elon Dodges imaginary punch from Hillary Clinton.) It’s going to be an interesting battle in Atlanta according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution

“The path to victory for Atlanta’s next mayor is clear, even if the candidates don’t want to say it. It’s about race. … This week’s mayoral election showed that decades after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. urged that people not be judged by the color of their skin, blacks and whites in his hometown are voting along racial lines.”

Yes, because its THAT simple.  It’s not about the social and political identity for one of the preeminant Black cities in the country, its about a lack of growth as a people.  I’m absolutely for voting for the most qualified(Guess who’s never voted for Sharpton? “This Guy”) but to ignore the the racial issues that create this “discussion” would be foolish.

(Source)

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