Hip hop has a bad ‘rap’.

Whether you consume rap and hip-hop or not, you know the genres have dingy reputations. I believe the hate for hip-hop and rap blossomed in the 90's. Rappers were actually cold-blooded gangsters at the time, people who occasionally shot one another. The music reflected the turmoil that its creators had experienced- growing up in crack-infused ghettos, resorting to crime to scrape by, and dying in a swarm of bullets even if they did finally make it out and become famous. "I'm twenty-three now but will I live to see twenty-four/ the way things is going I don't know," Coolio said in "Gangster's Paradise", and he was by no means a Tu-pac; he was gangster-rap-lite. The depression of 90's rappers manifested itself in loud, brash talk of guns and glory; no wonder white outsiders were scared. The violent content of 90's rap inspired Tipper Gore and their ilk to censor and criticize with fervor, cementing rap's image as a crude, violent genre for future gang-bangers. Hip-hop and rap also have the reputation of being degrading to women. This present stereotype was also inspired by past trends. After 90's gangster rap subsided, it was replaced with a money-cash-hoes mentality. In the early aughts, Jay-Z, 50 Cent and others spat mainly about their wealth, their rise from the streets, and the women that their amassed wealth could attract (Jay-Z wrote a song called "Money, Cash, Hoes"). Women were called hoes and bitches in earlier rap and hip-hop songs, it's true, but in the early 00's the music seemed more intently focused on the subject. Rap and hip-hop from this period was all about the ascent into fame, and the amassing of expensive objects. One of these objects happened to be attractive women. "I'm into having sex, I'm not into making love," 50 Cent reminds listeners in one of his most popular singles. Thus rap and hip-hop received another nasty label: it was degrading and shallow.

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The next generation of protests continues in Iran

I have been following the political news regarding Iran at various websites, including Windows on Iran, a site maintained by Dr. Fatemeh Keshavarz, a professor of Persian and Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. According to Windows on Iran, the protesters are still optimistic:

A young friend returning from Iran recently reported that an amazingly high percentage of people continue to wear green wristbands on a daily basis. Strangers passing by on the street, make “V” signs for victory, smile, and carry on with their daily activities. According to her, the nightly chants continue, and despite the pressures and the presence of police, there is a sense of hope.

Image by Windows on Iran (republished with permission) The political persecution continues. As reported by ALI AKBAR DAREINI: Iran began its first trial of the post-election crisis on Saturday, a mass court case against more than 100 activists and protesters accused of plotting a "velvet revolution" to topple clerical rule. Some of the most prominent politicians of the pro-reform movement, including a former vice president, were among the defendants brought before the court in gray prison uniforms. One of the recent posts by Keshavarz details the loud protests that are continuing, though the protests have evolved logistically to avoid harassment and arrest by the Basij Officers.

Demonstrators are careful to for small, loud, and fast groups who can protest and run before the riot police moves in. Here is one such demonstration happening near the Iranian state-run TV and Radio.

In the meantime, what is the American corporate media reporting about Iran? Fox News reports on the ongoing trials of the protesters (CBS too). Most American news site home pages reported that three American tourists were arrested after accidentally crossing over into Iran from Iraq. PBS reports nothing about Iran on its home page. Iran was a country that many prominent conservatives insisted on "bombing" in order to effect political reform. If the bombs were dropping, we'd have non-stop stories and photos of American military leveling portions of Iran. Coverage is scant, however, because the reform, which has endangered to lives and careers of many thousands of Iranians, is progressing without the backdrop of exploding American armaments.

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Huffington quackery

Over at Salon.com, Rahul K. Parikh, M.D. makes a strong case that the Huffington Post is not strong on vetting their health and wellness contributors:

But when it comes to health and wellness, that diverse forum [Huffpo] seems defined mostly by bloggers who are friends of Huffington or those who mirror her own advocacy of alternative medicine, described in her books and in many magazine profiles of her. Among others, the site has given a forum to Oprah Winfrey's women's health guru, Christiane Northrup, who believes women develop thyroid disease due to an inability to assert themselves; Deepak Chopra, who mashes up medicine and religion into self-help books and PBS infomercials; and countless others pitching cures that range from herbs to blood electrification to ozonated water to energy scans.

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Fat Tire’s first prize: an obsolete bike. The rationality of costly signaling.

Fat Tire Beer is holding a contest, and first prize is an old-fashioned bicycle. It is a cumbersome and heavy one-speed bike that lacks most of the useful features found on modern bicycles. What does it have going for it? Nothing much worth my while. I buy my bicycles for performance, features and functionality, not looks. Others would say that the Fat Tire bicycle has an unique style worth coveting. I know a woman who recently paid a large amount of money for a "retro" bicycle much like the one in the photo. She bragged about her bicycle only in terms of what it looked like, and seemed to get irritated when I asked her whether she would miss some of the useful features found in most modern bicycles, features such as multiple gears, high-tech gear-shifting, feather-light frame, and front or rear suspension. It appears that Fat Tire Beer is looking for customers like the woman I just described, people who are obsessed with the looks of a bicycle rather than its functionality. I recently posted on Geoffrey Miller's terrific new book, Spent. At page 97, Miller discusses the "signaling value" of many modern products. Miller points out that modern corporations work hard to avoid competition based upon objective features that can be compared. Fat Tire Beer, for example, did not choose to offer a modern bicycle that could easily be compared to the many other bicycles currently being sold. Instead, the company chose to offer an old-fashioned bike that would signal a certain trait for the owner and his/her friends/acquaintances. Modern corporations

Use advertising to create signaling systems--psychological links between brands and the aspirational traits that consumers would like to display. Although these signaling links must be commonly understood by the consumer's socially relevant peer group, they need not involve the actual product at all. The typical Vogue magazine ad shows just two things: a brand name and an attractive person . . . there is a hidden rationality at work--the rationality of costly signaling. What matters in most advertising is the learned association between the consumer's aspirational traits and the company's trademarked brand name--the fountainhead of all profitability.
Therefore, don't waste your time trying to figure out what obsolete styles of bicycles have to do with beer. The bicycle featured on the label of Fat Tire Beer has nothing to do with the taste or quality of the liquid in the bottle. Rather, buying Fat Tire Beer is an opportunity for a consumer to display to others that the consumer can afford a premium beer. The bicycle on the label gives consumers a further opportunity to suggest that tradition is more important than functionality. Those who buy Fat Tire Beer let the beer do their talking for them: "I'm a person who values tradition over functionality." That's my guess. I wouldn't accept that cumbersome and sparsely-featured contest bicycle even if someone offered it to me for free, because I know less-costly, less wasteful and more effective ways of convincing others that I often value tradition. It involves hard work and no gimmicks. It requires that you willingly put your life under a microscope, that you repeatedly show rather than tell, and that you show your values in ways other than through conspicuous consumption.

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