• NYC Baker who is selling ‘Drunken Negro Head’ Cookies – “Ted Kefalinos, the proprietor of a bakery in Greenwich Village (a neighborhood in New York City), can’t understand why the media is having such a field day over his Drunken Negro Head cookies.”
• Spotting the Stereotypes: He’s Just Not That Into You – “… after carefully showing the tortured romantic lives of Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson, Kevin Connolly, and Ginnifer Goodwin, the camera cuts to two heavyset black women sitting on a bench.One woman looks dead at the camera and says (to some unknown listener) “Girl, you better get yourself some ribs and some ice cream because you’ve been dumped!””
• Study Sees an Obama Effect as Lifting Black Test-Takers – “Now researchers have documented what they call an Obama effect, showing that a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.”

Meanwhile, the Pope has also weighed in on the whole facebook thing, essentially saying that it’s all pretty cool (really, that’s what he said!), but that we best be careful, lest we obsesses, marginalize, and isolate others through our online socializing. In other words, lest it reproduce our less savory tactics in the tactile world.

Oh, and speaking of tactile:

He urges producers to ensure that the content respects human dignity and the “goodness and intimacy of human sexuality.”

That’s hot.  

Here are the stories:

• Facebook Murder Reflects Cultural Shifts – “The integration of new social networking into the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world is dramatically changing communication and introducing unknown new dynamics into ages old-interpersonal issues, including psychosis and violence. There are new questions to ask.”
• Wife murdered for Facebook status – “A man murdered his estranged wife after becoming “enraged” when she changed her marital status on Facebook to “single”.”
• Report: Over 8 in 10 corporations have tax havens – “Eighty-three of the nation’s 100 largest corporations, including Citigroup, Bank of America and News Corp., had subsidiaries in offshore tax havens in 2007, and some of the companies received federal bailout funding, a government watchdog said Friday.”

• Students Covering Bigger Share of Costs of College – “College students are covering more of what it costs to educate them, even as most colleges are spending less on students, according to a new study.”
• This Inauguration Is Inspiring Classrooms Nationwide – NYTimes.com – “The inauguration of America’s first African-American president has captured the imagination of students and educators with an intensity that surpasses  previous ceremonies, and schools from New Hampshire to Florida to California are working to bring the excitement and pageantry, the sheer history of it all, to life in the classroom.”
• Study: You Touch It, You Buy It – “But this study, conducted by researchers at Ohio State University, is the first to show “mine, mine, mine” feelings can begin in as little as 30 seconds after first touching an object.”

• Obama tells daughters he ran for president for them, all children -
• Lil Kim not happy with Biggie biopic – “In a statement, she said: “The film studio and producers involved were more concerned about painting me as a ‘character’ to create a more interesting story line instead of a person with talent, self-respect and who was able to achieve her own career success through hard work.”"
• Simple Inside » Interesting feature in GMail – “What it does?
  It prevents you from sending an email when you are drunk, there by helping you stop sending email that you would regret later.”

• National Endowment for the Arts Report Finds Fiction Reading on the Rise – “Nevertheless the proportion of overall literary reading increased among virtually all age groups, ethnic and demographic categories since 2002. It increased most dramatically among 18-to-24-year-olds, who had previously shown the most significant declines.”
• ‘There’s no stress’: Couple weds at Taco Bell on Yahoo! News – Is this envy I feel?
• Jerry Adler: Are Kidneys a Commodity? – “Cohen is a professor of law at George Mason University who for two decades has been fighting for the right to sell off his major organs—or to buy one from someone else, should he need it. …. Cohen has made his case at length in articles and books, but he can summarize it in a dozen words: “If you pay people for something, they will provide more of it.” This, he says, is as true of body parts as anything else.”
• Organ Trafficking Is No Myth – “Some stories—especially the ones about kidnapped children, stolen limbs and tourists murdered for organs—were clearly false. But it was also clear that slums throughout the developing world were full of AWOL soldiers, desperate parents and anxious teenage boys willing to part with a kidney or a slice of liver in exchange for cash and a chance to see the world—or at least to buy a car. [....] But not all organs flowed from poor countries to rich ones; Americans, for example, were both buyers and sellers in this global market. A Kentucky woman once contacted Scheper-Hughes looking to sell her kidney or part of her liver so that she could buy some desperately needed dentures.”
• First US count finds 1 in 200 kids are vegetarian – “Other surveys suggest the rate could be four to six times that among older teens who have more control over what they eat than young children do.”
• In Obama, many see an end to baby boomer era – “Interestingly, Kennedy is often claimed by boomers to be one of their own, even though he was nothing of the kind; born in 1917, he’d be 91 now. In the same way, many Gen Xers and even Gen Yers like to claim Obama, too”
• “Justices Will Hear Challenge to Voting Rights Act” – “The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to examine whether a central component of landmark civil rights legislation enacted to protect minority voters is still needed in a nation that has elected an African American president.”
• Why so many Americans under 30 are greeting a black president as old news – “It may sound strange to people who lived through the civil rights era, but it’s true: if you were born after, say, 1978, a black president doesn’t necessarily feel like a milestone. It feels like something you’ve seen before. You’ve watched Morgan Freeman lead the free world as the planet was menaced by a comet in “Deep Impact.” You’ve seen Dennis Haysbert, on the TV drama “24,” appearing more presidential for 79 episodes than some heads of state look in real life. And although he has not yet entered the Oval Office in a movie, you can no longer count the number of times that Will Smith has rescued mankind.”

• Obama To Make Urban Policy A Priority – (hat tip to Racialicious): Now if we could just get the urban office and small farm aid people in cahoots…
• Obama as role model for black youth? + Byron Hurt – “But some African Americans living in inner city Atlanta said that while Obama is a role model his life appeared so far removed from their own struggles that it was difficult to see how they could use it to spur their own success.”::”Hurt’s latest film, “Barack and Curtis”, is a 10-minute documentary released on the internet that compares the image projected by Obama with the image of Curtis Jackson, who is better known as the rapper 50 Cent.”
• `$100 laptop’ group reboots Give One Get One offer – We did this last year  for our 3 y.o. son. One of the best purchases we’ve ever made for him. So how about a U.S. version?

• Daily Kos: Sarah Palin Is NOT The Mother [Photos+Video] – Gasp! No? What?!?
• Blogging’s Glass Ceiling – "And though women and men are creating blogs in roughly equal numbers, many women at the conference were becoming very Katie Couric about their belief that they are not taken as seriously as their male counterparts"
• Nantucket's cultural clash – "The declining homogeneity of Nantucket's population – town officials estimate there are about 20,000 full-time residents, more than double what the US Census Bureau documented in 2000 – has introduced new stresses to an island unaccustomed to culture cla
• Poor Economy Slams Brakes on Women’s Workplace Progress – "When economists first started noticing this trend two or three years ago, many suggested that the pullback from paid employment was a matter of the women themselves deciding to stay home … But now, a different explanation is turning up in government da
• From noses to hips, Rwandans start to redefine beauty – "A history of identity politics – and genocide – is challenged by university beauty pageants.[...] Here the shape of one's nose, hips, or eyes are overlaid with political and historical meaning."
• On Campus, the ?60s Begin to Fade as Liberal Professors Retire – "But as educators have noted, the generation coming up appears less interested in ideological confrontations, summoning Barack Obama?s statement about the elections of 2000 and 2004: ?I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the Baby
• Timothy Egan: Save the Press – "We could be left with a national snark brigade, sniping at the remaining dailies in their pajamas, never rubbing shoulders with a cop, a defense attorney or a distressed family in a Red Cross shelter after a flood."

• Kemba Smith Gets a Biopic – “Although the government acknowledged that Smith never sold or took drugs, “she was charged with conspiracy to distribute crack and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.” In 1999 she was featured in Glamour Magazine, which described how she came to be char
• Young American Indians Find Their Voice in Poetry – “While Nolan and his teammates do not hail from the gritty urban surroundings that are often a breeding ground for slam poetry, where poets are judged on both performance and writing, their team is drawing national attention for its decidedly American Ind
• Living Up to Her Name Despite the Hurdles in Her Path – NYTimes.com – “Her father has 23 children, 9 with her mother, Harrison said. Her sisters have names like Graceful, Empress, Princess and Muun. An older brother is named God Goldin Zig Zag Zig Allah.” –> That makes me really happy. (Really!)
• The American Scholar – The Disadvantages of an Elite Education – “The advantages of an elite education are indeed undeniable. You learn to think, at least in certain ways, and you make the contacts needed to launch yourself into a life rich in all of society?s most cherished rewards. To consider that while some oppor

• University Television Ads Depict White Dominance, Study Finds – "The researchers found that the overwhelmingly majority of the students and alumni depicted in the advertisements were white, with minority members generally being depicted only as token members of larger groups. The common image of a group of students st
• What Created This Monster? – "The Federal Reserve not only taken has action unprecedented since the Great Depression ? by lending money directly to major investment banks ? but also has put taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars in questionable trades these same bankers ma
• Gays fear an influx of hate – "The tragedy has exacerbated tensions between Sacramento's gay community and the region's booming population of Slavic evangelical Christians, whose most vocal congregants in recent years have mobilized on the streets and statehouse steps to protest homos
• The Mind of a One-Woman Multitude – Erykah Badu – "As she floated in the tub (?I always go all the way underneath the water and try to hold my breath a long time,? she said), she had a revelation: ?Different thoughts kept coming into my head. The first thought was, ooh, I wonder if my hair gonna be
• Boy?s Killing, Labeled a Hate Crime, Stuns a Town – "Hundreds of mourners gathered at a church here on Friday to remember an eighth-grade boy who was shot to death inside a junior high school computer lab by a fellow student in what prosecutors are calling a hate crime."
• Many blacks worry about Obama's safety – "They watch with wonder as Barack Obama moves ever closer to becoming America's first black president. And they ask themselves, their family, their friends: Is he at risk? Will he be safe?"
• Postpartum Depression More Likely In African-American And Low-Income Women – ""Women who are poor already have a lot of stress, ranging from poor living conditions to concerns about paying the bills. The birth of an infant can represent additional financial and emotional stress, and depression negatively impacts the woman's abilit
• The Republican Democrat – "But now the candidate who should be as familiar as anyone with "the Chicago way" — given that he's actually from Chicago — is on the receiving end of some less than polite politics, and more than a few progressives don't like what they're seeing. Barac
• The Triumph of Narrative – "Though we may or may not have reached the end of the unexpected upsets and dramatic reversals of the primaries, much less the general election to come, there is no doubt that of all the people who ran for president this year, Obama has run the smartest a
• Biracial, but not like me – ""Dreams From My Father" is the story of Obama's personal evolution from parochialism to a universal humanism. It's also the story of how a man blessed with a powerful analytical mind developed emotional intelligence along the way. Obama's tortured interi
• A Suburb Looks Nervously at Its Urban Neighbor – "For many outsiders, the attack on Mr. McDermott is seen as comeuppance for a community that seemed smug about its wealth, security and racial diversity. ?I wonder how much ?tolerance? the ?progressive,? snooty, pseudo-intellectual limousine lib
• An Unjust Conclusion – "During nearly a month of testimony Manso had seen the defense chip away at the state?s case?the contaminated crime scene, the spotty crime lab testing?and when the verdict was read he heard gasps from hard-bitten reporters in the balcony. How could
• Jurors testify about claims of racism – The Boston Globe – "The three jurors contacted McCowen's lawyer, Robert A. George, who is not related to the juror, days after the verdict to say that an atmosphere of racism permeated deliberations. The three jurors filed affidavits and largely hewed to them yesterday, wit
• Outsourced Wombs – "We, however, can hear the imperious tone, so much more audible in radio than in the troubling print reports that have surfaced lately on Indian surrogate mothers? ?wombs for rent.? And we should care about how things sound."
• Men shoot themselves in tattoo attempt – "Two men trying to trace a loaded .357-caliber Magnum as a pattern for a tattoo accidentally shot themselves, the Otero County Sheriff's Department said Monday."
• None of the Above: Books: What I.Q. doesn?t tell you about race – "The lesson to be drawn from black and white differences was the same as the lesson from the Netherlands years ago: I.Q. measures not just the quality of a person?s mind but the quality of the world that person lives in."
• In Marseille, Rap Helps Keep the Peace – "The Marseillais have plenty of explanations for this disparity, aside from the obvious one that the poor areas here aren?t segregated on the city outskirts, as they are in Paris ? but it is hip-hop, as much a source of local pride as the town?s soc
• A Midnight Service Helps African Immigrants Combat Demons – "Those other churches might argue that such a focus on witchcraft is a relic of Africans? old beliefs, a dangerously pagan preoccupation. But scholars say this is Christianity made profoundly African. Spiritual Warfare considers itself Pentecostal, and
• The Web Users? Campaign – "In the new and evolving online world, the greatest momentum goes not to the candidate with the most detailed plan for conquering the Web but to the candidate who surrenders his own image to the clicking masses, the same way a rock guitarist might fall ba
• The New New Philosophy – "But now a restive contingent of our tribe is convinced that it can shed light on traditional philosophical problems by going out and gathering information about what people actually think and say about our thought experiments. The newborn movement (?x-
• On campuses, students struggle with racism, ethnic tensions – "The tensions, says Daren Graves, an assistant professor of general education at Simmons College, mirror a nationwide movement opposed to political correctness that's occurring in response to the advances of the civil-rights movement."
• White May Be Might, But It's Not Always Right – "Unfortunately, this line of questioning reinforces one of the most persistent myths in America, that white is always right. The myth reflects an enduring double standard based on "white" and "black" explanations for social problems. And it assumes that "
• 33 ways to say 'black' and 'box' – "The concentration of works that deliberated, deconstructed or dabbled in notions of identity gave Moniz pause. "I was shocked if not dismayed," she admits. "I wasn't thinking about blackness at all. Except that the artists were black.""
• A Separate Union, of Athletes, for Athletes – "The news media response to Taylor?s murder was disturbing, and should have been sobering to all professional athletes. Several commentaries rehashed Taylor?s past transgressions, expressing no surprise that Taylor died a violent death."
• The Geography of Hate – "And the number of hate groups, according to the annual count by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has shot up 40 percent in recent years, from 602 groups in 2000 to 844 in 2006."
• In Gaps at School, Weighing Family Life – "But whether it is a parent?s fault or the societal pressures on the parent, the results are hard on the child: The average scores for black and Hispanic children on reading and math assessments at the start of kindergarten are 20 percent lower than for
• Europe dream turns sour for African migrant youth –
• Is Hello Kitty Turning Feral? – "?I think Sanrio has become somewhat more liberal in its licensing strategy,? he said. ?You won?t find Hello Kitty pitching hunting rifles or malt liquor, of course, but the brand has moved into more daring areas such as ladies? evening and nigh
• Mothers Scrimp as States Take Child Support – "The collection of child support from absent fathers is failing to help many of the poorest families, in part because the government uses fathers? payments largely to recoup welfare costs rather than passing on the money to mothers and children."
• Effort to Limit Junk Food in Schools Faces Hurdles – "But that intense corporate involvement, along with exemptions that would allow sales of chocolate milk, sports drinks and diet soda, has caused a rift among food activists who usually find themselves on the same side of school food battles."
• Penny Foolish – "Yet the company has adopted a far more activist approach when the issue is the well-being of livestock. In March, Burger King announced strict new rules on how its meatpacking suppliers should treat chickens and hogs. As for human rights abuses, Burger K