Finally, finally, finally...
Professional hypocrites who are too eager to punish people like Don Imus for saying things like "nappy-headed hos" are starting to examine those who say far worse far more often, namely hip-hop artists. Al Sharpton is a prime example of someone who will leap down the throat of any white person who utters the N-word but remains mum when Beenie Man sings a song about how all fags should die. I'm not even gonna mention
Tawana Brawley, though I'm fairly dying to.
The Pop Culture Institute is unequivocally opposed to censorship, even that imposed upon the very worst hate speech. Punishing someone for saying a terrible thing doesn't stop them from thinking it, only from saying it. Instead of releasing the hatred and aggression inherent in such speech - which may, it is true, encourage others to acts of violence - it festers inside them, which may indeed result in a much larger crime at a later date.
Hate speech is the result of disordered thinking. Inaccurate assumptions, left unchecked, easily become the truth. Peer groups - whether they call themselves a posse or a congregation - have a way of forming around this sort of affinity. Hate thinking, naturally, cannot help but express itself, which is where the vicious cycle is given release. Those on the receiving end of this hatred will inevitably react, rather than understand, and the cycle continues, without relief.
I've always liked hip-hop, despite the dismaying profusion of hatred in its lyrics, mainly because not everyone does it, and even those who do it don't do it all the time. For those who do, though, their hatred can be considered a road map to relieving itself. A rapper who has bad luck with women is likely to think badly of all women, when in fact he's just surrounded by the wrong kind of women, namely the kind who cast aside all morality when faced with a wealthy, popular recording artist who feels entitled to getting whatever he demands, including sleazy behaviour from scantily clad women.
Similarly, a muscular black rapper like 50 Cent seems to be displaying his ignorance when he demonstrates fear of a stereotypical gay man, a 150-pound mincing white guy. In every way, Fitty has the upper hand here. There are no gangs of hairdressers terrorizing Harlem, and there never have been, and there never will be. Oppressors have a funny way of believing that those whom they've oppressed, given the upper hand, will act in exactly the way they've been treated. It simply doesn't happen.
I think it was really Eminem who brought about the current scrutiny, for which he will one day be as lauded as he once was vilified. His were the first hip-hop lyrics really scrutinized by the mainstream media (with the possible exception of 2 Live Crew), a fact which he frequently bemoaned in his music. It's a tad disingenuous, but it's also entirely ingenious.
Eminem knows exactly what he's doing, and hides behind that trailer park persona of his because it's a well-known fact that young men, when they're smart, usually get called fags, and as everyone knows, a fag is the worst thing you can be called. He will win a GLAAD award yet, you mark my words.
If you meet someone who, for whatever reason, you don't like, you can simply ignore them. Or you can choose to use the opportunity to examine your own prejudices. Does that person express something in their person which you dislike about yourself? Lashing out, whether using words or fists, does nothing. It may alter their behaviour, which is common result of terrorism, but it doesn't make you feel any better, nor does it make the "problem" go away; there'll always be another and another who produces the same reaction, since the real problem isn't them it's you.
The real irony is, if you hate fags so much that you're willing to assault or kill one, rest assured you will be caught and sent to jail and that will be eye-opening, to say the least. If that's what you're really after, there are places to go for that which have the added benefit of not having to deal with the police. At least not the on-duty ones.
It's high time for this debate. Oprah Winfrey, who has recently been criticized for turning her back on the black community, has simply turned her back on the more negative aspects of her communtiy in favour of the more positive ones, and to take her role in the larger community of humans, especially those who refuse to define themselves in terms as narrow as skin colour. She's to be commended for enjoining the debate now. Similarly, Bill Cosby has drawn fire made for comments critical of black men - comments that might have been better directed at himself first, given the bumpy few years of scandal he's endured - but at least he's gotten people talking.
So thank you, Michael Richards and Don Imus, for providing the tipping point. I have a feeling that by the time everybody's put their two cents into this one our society will be a much richer one.
What I cannot believe is that a professional army would deploy any soldier whose presence is likely to be distracting, as well as one who's been targeted for capture by Shi'ite militia as Prince Harry. I cannot help but wonder at what's really behind this.
Now, admittedly, I'm no expert in S&M. Okay, I've got the M part down, but the S... Not so much. 
I have no idea what encouraged the Toronto Star's Scott Reid to sharpen his knife in this case, but I must say that his effort to plunge it in are well-received here.
An earthquake registering 4.7 on the Richter scale rumbled through southwestern England, toppling chimneys and shaking nerves, but causing no serious injury or death.
Jack Valenti brought censorship to the mainstream. While the ratings system he pioneered through the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) undoubtedly made it clearer what sort of content one could expect on the way in to the multiplex, it did so in a reductive way, by edict of a committee whose decisions were anything but transparent. As well, the process by which those ratings were assigned was fraught with corruption.
Blah blah blah contract negotiations blah blah. Blah blah, blah amicable blah blah blah. Blah saw this coming a mile off blah, blah blah.
Speaking of things that have left the solar system (how's that for a segueway?) I just bought my DVD of "The Queen", and am getting ready to settle in and enjoy.
Day in, day out, the endless numbing fatigue, the apathy, the absolute dread about doing anything or going anywhere... 
We here at the Pop Culture Institute can only hope Her Excellency isn't ill; Jean's predecessor is twenty years older and didn't cancel events, despite a fairly major illness while in office. Likewise, the Lady she represents still does over two hundred engagements a years despite being nearly forty years older.
Manhattan will add to its already burgeoning inventory of honorific public art by erecting a statue of Andy Warhol in Soho's Father Fagan Park. Presumably this means Chelsea will get the one of Joe Dallesandro for the Tomb of the Unknown Hustler.
Having just picked myself up off the floor from the mere possibility that a politician might actually (gasp!) keep a campaign promise, it looks as though New York governor Eliot Spitzer is prepared to introduce a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in that state.
It's a landmark election today for the Fifth Republic (though this is only the runoff); for the first time France appears ready to elect a President born after World War 2, and whichever of the front-runners succeeds it promises to be a first.
Actually there are two, and this is where it gets confusing. 
The arts community has lost a tireless advocate in Kitty Carlisle Hart, who died yesterday of pneumonia. 
Until recently, the biggest tourist attraction in Adaminaby was the Big Trout (pictured).
The first book I finished was actually brought to my attention by James Mullin, my book enabler, er, dealer. Seller! My book seller... When he handed me this one I snatched it away from him so fast there was a concern he might need a blood transfusion to help him recover from the paper cuts.
Covering roughly the same territory (geographically, at least), albeit 150 years previous, is the thick and juicy "Five Points" by Tyler Anbinder. I love nothing better than wrapping my hands around a great big history book, especially one which throbs with insight and pulses with life. Fortunately, I'm not one to sublimate, nor would I dream of exaggerating. Not in a million years.