I’ve got four black suits that I circulate, and they are my cemetery clothes — my uniform that keeps me ready for battle . . . It’s ready to die, brother. If I drop dead, I am coffin-ready. I got my tie, my white shirt, everything. Just fix my Afro nice in the coffin.
— Cornel West responding to a question about why he always wears a black suit, white shirt, and black tie outfit.
Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.
— Sesame Workshop responding to a petition from Change.org for PBS to out the roommates so that they can married in the name of gay rights.
Oy. I haven’t, but I can give you my stance on it: It’s like communism—good in theory, in execution it fails. Friends of mine have done it, and it never ends well. Why do people put themselves through that torture?
Mila Kunis , star of the new movie Friends With Benefits on her view of “friends with benefits” relationships.
[T]here’s something kind of ugly and narcissistic in an old-fashioned colonial sense about this notion of “finding yourself” through travel; as if all those people on the other side of the world are just sitting around waiting for another white American who they can self-actualize. As if the value of visiting another place is not in seeing another side of history and human experience in all of its richness and inconceivable variety, but in catching a reflection of yourself from a different angle.
— Ned Resnikoff on the popular narrative of travel as a guaranteed path to self-discovery. (Via: Nick Troester )
[T]he contract [for MTV’s reality show, The Real World ] spelling out any potential liabilities for the show is now warning cast members that some of the things involved with being on The Real World include having a nervous breakdown, losing limbs, contracting STDs, and “the possibility of consensual and non-consensual physical contact.” Also, they’re not going to screen anyone for diseases, including AIDS, which you also might catch. You also might die. By the way, none of this is the responsibility of MTV, and it will be all your fault. Seriously, it sounds like it’s a reality show based on Saw .
— Jamie Frevele from the “girl geek culutre” blog, The Mary Sue
