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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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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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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Serena Williams Fined 82,500 dollars for outburst at U.S. Open.

The Babcock has come to roost for Ms. Williams.
From the AP:

Serena Williams was fined at least a record $82,500 for her U.S. Open tirade and could be suspended from that tournament if she has another “major offense” at any Grand Slam in the next two years, Grand Slam administrator Bill Babcock told The Associated Press on Monday.

Babcock’s decision was to be formally released later Monday.

He said Williams faces a “probationary period” at Grand Slam tournaments in 2010 and 2011.

If she has another “major offense” at a major championship in that time, the fine would increase to $175,000 and she would be barred from the following U.S. Open.

Congressman Joe “You Lie” Wilson raised $1 million for his re-election bid days after his ‘outburst’. He’s currently clocking upwards to $3 million. Accountability is a fickle beast.

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Somali Pirates Capture Oil Tanker On Route to New Orleans

The resurgence of Pirates isn’t the biggest of news items these days (its been happening for a while) but the fact that they are not only trying these crazy stunts, they’re PULLING IT OFF.

“NAIROBI, Kenya — Somali pirates have struck again, seizing an oil tanker loaded with $20 million in crude that was headed from Saudi Arabia to the United States, naval authorities said Monday.”

Do you realize they don’t have that much technology OR money? These attacks are beig won by sheer balls. I have to admit I wouldn’t be prepared for a Pirate attack. The whole time I’d wonder to myself…”is this a gag? This has to be a gag right? Who the hell ‘Pirates”(verb) son?”

And then I would be shot.

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Margaret Cho Sounds off on White House Party Crashers.

Now If “I” were to make commentary about the now infamous White House Party crash and that obviously this is the power of Whiteness, I’d be accused of being super sensitive about race and possibly I need to calm the eff down. How about if an Asian throws it out there? Margaret Cho, an industry vet weighed in on the crashers this weekend on her blog.

“I am convinced those people got into that white house state dinner because they are white. I attended a state dinner during the Clinton administration and they did such a thorough background check before I was even allowed to RSVP that I was coming I thought they were going to ask me for a stool sample – we are talking DEEP BACKGROUND – and I am fucking famous. And I was fucking famous then. White people always look more INVITED than non white people.” – Margaret Cho

SEE! It’s not just me! Thats an incredibly solid point. SHE IS FAMOUS. And lets be honest, a Black couple just ain’t, absolutely, positively AIN’T (Yes, I chose AIN’T)  getting into the White House with out an invite. I don’t care if they had the dangerous look of Wayne Brady, it’s just not happening. Hell, I don’t think WAYNE BRADY HIMSELF is getting in there. Of course the crazy right-wingers somehow blame Obama for this ridiculousness.

“How can Obama protect this country when he can’t even protect the White House?” – AngryMom80

Yeah. That was a real tweet. People are THAT stupid. If that’s “Real America” you can count me out. I’ll stay over in fake America or Unpatriotic America where dumb shit like the above is called “Dumb Shit” and not re-tweeted through out the web as if its some sort of amazingly wise gospel.

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Jesse Ventura Appears on Larry King about Obama and Afghanistan…

Because…um…we care about Jesse Ventura says about…anything? I’m confused. Even more confusing, is that its being advertised as if anyone should give a rats ass about what Mr. Ventura’s opinion is about ANYTHING. Unless he’s going to break down the brand new “Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010″ game for my XBox360 I’m going to skip this. Oh, Oh, if he and Arnold Schwartzenegger decide to raid a village in the middle east with Dolph Lundgren, then I’ll care about that too. THATS interesting. This? Not so much.

Source: Larry King Live Showpage 11.30.09

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Remember back in Episode 2 of Season 2 of “This Week in Blackness“? Remember when I made that completely off hand comment about Twitter being gangsta? Yeah, that was silly. Ridiculous even. What wanna-be gangsta’s would ACTUALLY be on Twitter and tweet ridiculously dumb shit that could later be used against them?

“The city’s street gangs are becoming tweet gangs.

Manhattan’s young thugs have turned to Twitter, and the cops who track them are fast behind, the Daily News has learned.

It’s old-school crime meets new technology: attacks being plotted – and thwarted – 140 characters at a time.” – The Daily News

Um, has “The Wire” taught young punks anything? On that show they didnt even use cell phones for more than a few weeks and these dumbasses are tweeting whats going down? Besides the fact that they shouldn’t be in gangs planning to beat up people, if you are going to ACTIVELY work to be violent, can you at least not be stupid about it?

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