The Smithian

culture is politics. politics is culture. [beta]

[thesmithian-blog]

back soon.​ in the meanwhile, please know we're working on this. 

[thesmithian-blog]

...though there’s lots of handwringing in the media...lots of outraged moralizing about football’s corruption, it’s inevitably channeled into outrage against ‘the league’ or ‘the culture of the players,’ or somebody like Ray Rice...The final step that the media will never take [is to call out fans for] taking part in a system that’s corrupt.

Steve Almond

[wmagazine]

Trapped in the Suburbs

Photograph by Emma Summerton; styled by Giovanna Battaglia; W magazine March 2014. 

[theculturetrip]

The Culture Trip Loves

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[meaningful glance]

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I don’t want my successes to be paid for with someone else’s blood. Do you?

Kai-Ming Ko

his tumblr

[thesmithian-blog]

It's interesting that those who pay...lip service to the idea of the disadvantaged lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps and turning their lives around are the same people who are the first lobbing cruel rhetorical grenades at those who have worked hard, defied the odds, and reached the zenith of their professions.

Chidike Okeem

[thesmithian-blog]

Harper's Bazaar  | Spain

[thesmithian-blog]

...paintings by artist Adam Hunter Caldwell.

[usnatarchives]

Did you see the movie “Selma” over the Christmas holidays?  The National Archives at Atlanta holds the federal court case filed in the U.S. District Court in Montgomery that deals with these events, check out our online exhibit at http://www.archives.gov/atlanta/exhibits/item400-exh.html

You can see selected documents including pages from the complaint, some pages of John Lewis’s testimony, and newspaper clippings from “The Birmingham News.”

These documents come from civil case #2181-N, Hosea Williams, John Lewis, and Amelia Boynton v. Honorable George C. Wallace, Governor of the State of Alabama, Al Lingo, Director of Public Safety for the State of Alabama, and James G. Clark, Sheriff of Dallas County, Alabama.

[thesmithian-blog]

[look of the hour]

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'What I've done on television is try to work hard, try to be factually correct, try to write creatively and compellingly. I want to be myself, and anyone who says, "Oh well, he's a hip hop anchor," well, that's what I grew up on. I grew up mostly on hip hop and show tunes. I grew up on West Side Story, The Wiz, Godspell, but also Public Enemy...What I do on television is part of who I am. I'm not trying to be anyone else. I've always been of the mindset: "Be who you are; just do the work and work hard."

Rest in peace, Stuart Scott. He's pictured above with his daughters.

[thesmithian-blog]

Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel in a decade, 'The Buried Giant,' will be released next March...

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[a] rise to the middle class sounds like something from an old movie.

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I didn't believe I was technically the best person to do it, but I believed that I cared and I would work day and night. My sweat equity had to mean something...I was going to try, and I would do my best, and I knew why I was doing it, and I think when you know that inside yourself, you know that your intentions are clear and clean, then you have a very direct purpose to pull you through all those other things when you aren't so sure.

Angelina Jolie

[thesmithian-blog]

'wouldn't it be better if websites just made themselves?'

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...Google ‘Bill Cosby rape.’ That shit has more results than Hannibal Buress.

Hannibal Buress

and more.

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...part horror movie, part buddy comedy, part superhero origin story, this twist on the classic body-snatcher formula—adapted from a popular manga...

more.

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The reality is that the creative class spans all age groups...

more.

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...the black professional social scene in Charlotte is often a source of angst for many within it, who lament the dearth of good or welcoming places to go to, or that the so-called hot spots never last. Newcomers quickly tire of not being able to identify where black professionals socialize after work or party after dark on a consistent basis.

more.