Colin Powell

What follows is completely true and yet unreal.
Stephen Foster met Uncle Ben in my radio reverie this morning. For real, or so it seemed. (Y'all know I hear odd connections in that place between asleep and awake.)

Two southern stories that seem literally black and white, but turn out to be anything but.

Radio news reported that the Southland's good old-fashioned composer is on his way out; our conservative and affable new governor actually refuses to have our state song played in his presence! (yet in the same breath he says "whatever the people want satisfies me" and that sure sounds unreal to me.)

Nobody said anything unmannerly or politically correct about unpopular language, although that's likely the truth. One legislator did mention the word "darkies" but to hear them tell it, it's not that, just the times they are a'changin' . . .hey, now THAT would make a great state song!

Meanwhile good old-fashioned Uncle Ben got a promotion to Chairman of the Board. He isn't the kindly kitchen rice-cooker anymore, now he's the Donald Trump of Rice, with his own fancy penthouse office, jet-setting schedule and authoritative rice-education curriculum. (You can poke around his empty office, open his travel journal, it feels almost like corporate espionage, with him hanging on the wall watching your every move!)

Been blogging at Snook about school dress codes and the degree to which costumes constitute culture, connecting that to how best to prepare for all possible futures and for disasters of all types -- natural, manmade and fashion disasters!

Which no doubt connects somehow to Liza's "taxidermy fashion as politics" too, but to me the main power of story is (as always) educational. Visit the original blogpost if you can, to see other links, comments and connected ideas, including how military hero Colin Powell's dress code fits into cultural warfare, but here's a little tease:

It’s the Culture, Stupid. Change their culture, change their world, which put in current culturally relevant terms might evoke “save the cheerleader, save the world”– and saving her doesn’t mean fretting over her algebra grade, much less clucking at her cleavage and throwing an old shirt over it in the guidance office…

Kids and teens live in a very real culture even if it seems like a comic book, one that School does not control or define (much as it wants to believe otherwise) and marginalizes itself further by refusing to engage.

This wonderful limerick was submitted by commenter Woolly Bully.

[via So what should we call culturekitchen's "Week In Review"? The leftovers? | culturekitchen]:

There once was a place called Iraq
That country my Daddy attacked
But when my turn falls
I lose both my balls
Let's hope nuking Iran gets them back

Love it!