Links Roundup – 2011-11-09
An amazing conversation that could only happen on The Stream – Derrick, May Alhassen, and Basim Usmani (of the Kominas) have an engaging and real conversation with Lupe Fiasco, one everything from the Occupy movements to Palestine. Fiasco is bracingly honest and surprisingly measured, in stark contrast to his other media experiences.
There is way too much awesome in this piece about K-pop stars from Ree at Seoulbeats:
2NE1 has always been somewhat the ‘black sheep’ of the girl group family. Where Wonder Girls are like the independent, chic, college-going older sister, SNSD is the preppy popular freshman cheerleader sister who gets all the guys, and 2NE1 is the rebellious middle sister who knees the guys in the balls if they ever decide to screw with her. And 4Minute would be that neglected problem-child youngest sister who goes out with fifty guys a month and gets scolded by the parents everyday– when really, all they actually want is affection and love.
If K-Pop was ‘Ten Things I Hate About You‘, SNSD would be Bianca, and 2NE1 would be Kat. You know, Kat– the one who has the tough girl exterior and rams into other people’s cars. But you know what, most people tended to like Kat better, because Kat was cool, Kat was different. And I could only imagine how disgruntled the audience would be if the movie ended with Kat doing a 180 and kissing puppies and moving into a fluorescent pink house. Just to make Patrick fall in love with her or something. Well, this is exactly what’s happening to 2NE1. Japan is Patrick. And I am the disgruntled audience.
In other K-pop news, The Grand Narrative posts an interesting musing on Korean pin-up girls. The GN also posts a link to Soompi, which discusses the controversy over an adaptation of one of my all time favorite manga series, Kimi Wa Petto. The Korean Men’s Association believes the premise (where a woman essentially adopts a stray ballet dancer as her pet – but treats him like a dog, literally) is demeaning to men. Which to me is fascinating – the whole series is an exploration of gender roles, societal expectations, with some compelling commentary on what “the perfect man” actually means. No idea what they actually did with the film, but if it follows the Japanese versions , they may want to see it before knocking the set-up.
Coates says it all on Cain:
Herman Cain has spent the past year peddling a thin tax policy, fumbling the names of foreign countries, and extolling his love of cornbread. Now, today, he stands accused of crudely fondling a white woman. Surely this is someone’s portrait of blackness, but not anyone who would feel at home in Harlem.
Via Sojo’s Trumpet, here’s a really cool project on Mapping Global Stereotypes by Yanko Tsvetkov. (Peep the country in Africa renamed “Madonnaland.”)
Is it unconstitutional to sentence minors to life without parole? SCOTUS debates these cases:
In the Alabama case, Evan James Miller was convicted of killing a neighbor in a trailer park, the Country Life Trailer Court near the small town of Speake in the rural, north-central part of the state. In July 2003, Miller and another youth had been drinking with Miller’s 52-year-0ld neighbor, Cole Cannon, when a fight broke out. Miller was later convicted of beating Cannon so severely that he could not get up from the floor, and died of inhaling smoke after Miller had set fire to the trailer, apparently to cover up evidence of the crime.
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