Dispatches from the Culture War - Let Freedom Ring Edition

Published by Portside
July 10, 2012


Texas Wal-Mart Made into Public Library Nets Award

Government Technology
July 5, 2012 

http://www.govtech.com/health/Texas-Wal-Mart-Public-Library-Nets-Award.html

The McAllen Public Library in Texas used to be a Wal-Mart
but was recently won the International Interior Design
Association's 2012 Library Interior Design Competition.
With the extra room the Library has more than doubled the
number of computers available and has added a teen area,
cafe, auditorium, quiet reading room, art gallery,
electronic classrooms, meeting rooms with audiovisual
services, an expanded children's area, and a used bookstore.

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Harlem's Hue-Man bookstore to close doors on July 31

by Michael J. Feeney 

New York Daily News
July 2, 2012

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/uptown/harlem-hue-man-bookstore-close-doors-july-31-article-1.1106665

One of Harlem's last surviving bookstores, known for
bringing black authors into the building as well as onto its
shelves, is closing its doors. Hue-Man Bookstore & Cafe,
which had a 10-year run, will close at the end of the month.
The store's demise wasn't attributable to any single cause,
said owner Marva Allen. She simply realized that her current
business model could not be sustained in an era of e-books
and digital delivery.   "We were in an obsolete model, and
we're interested in figuring out what the bookstore of the
future looks like." she said. She plans to continue selling
the Hue-Man inventory online.

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Seventeen Magazine Vows to Show Girls `as They Really Are'

By Christine Haughney

New York Times
Media Decoder Blog
July 3, 2012 

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/after-petition-drive-seventeen-magazine-commits-to-show-girls-as-they-really-are/ 

In recent months, Seventeen magazine has been inundated by
pleas from teenage girls to publish photographs of models
that don't look touched up, and under pressure, they agreed.
Their views became widely known through an online petition
started by Julia Bluhm, a 14-year-old from Waterville, Me.,
who blogged about her frustration with how many girls in her
ballet class were complaining that they were fat.

The new policy outlined by Seventeen represent a victory for
young women who have been encouraging the magazine to
present more realistic images of women. The magazine
promised that it will "never change girls' body or face
shapes" and will include only images of "real girls and
models who are healthy."

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Bankers and the Neuroscience of Greed

by Ian Robertson

Guardian (UK)
July 2, 2012

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/bankers-greed-brain-changes

Senior bankers hold enormous power, greater than that of
many elected national leaders. And  such unconstrained power
acts like a drug on their brains' reward systems, creating
insatiable appetites.  While power in moderate doses can
make people smarter, more strategic in their thinking,
bolder and less depressed, extraordinary power causes
extraordinary brain changes, which can make them egocentric,
greedy, likely to treat others as objects, and with a dulled
perception of risk. [With great power comes great
responsibility...]

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Game Changer - Why Frank Ocean's Coming Out is More
Significant than Anderson Cooper's

by Rod Mccullom
[Opinion]

Ebony
July 5, 2012

http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-culture/why-frank-oceans-coming-out-is-more-significant-than-anderson-coopers

Anderson Cooper and Frank Ocean both made public revelations
about their sexuality in the past week ... but Ocean's could
become the much more significant announcement.

Cooper's announcement came after years of living in the
proverbial "glass closet." But the low-key post and tweet
from Ocean - part of the alternative hip hop collective Odd
Future - was unexpected.  Ocean is a rising star in hip-hop,
where perceptions of Black masculinity are dominated by
hyper-sexuality, thug swagger and a deep homophobia.
Neither hip-hop nor R&B has ever boasted an openly gay or
bisexual mainstream male star, and his announcement is
considered a game-changer.

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Working Hard? Or Hardly Working?

by Kathy M. Newman

Working-Class Perspectives - Commentary from the Center for
Working-Class Studies June 11, 2012

http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/working-hard-or-hardly-working/

Comedy Central just broke out its third season of
Workaholics, about three continuously baked twentysomethings
who work as telemarketers. The program features wacky
workplace intrigue, peppered by drugs, a bitchy boss,
indecent exposure, and potty humor galore.

You wouldn't think that a comedy this juvenile would have
much to say about real workers, but the employees of
TelAmericorp can be devilishly wry in their commentary on
the modern-day dead-end-job. Almost every episode involves a
real life situation that workers face in the new
recessionary economy, such as getting fired, being denied
vacation time, being fired for striking, being denied a
raise or  a promotion, losing health insurance, being
evicted, and failing a drug test.

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