Access Atlanta > Blog > Archives > 2008 > April > 01
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Are you in the mood for nachos?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re in the mood for some nachos, you might want to check out this accessAtlanta article, which includes a few locations for some choice chips.
We’re not talking about the stuff you get at the movies. Nachos connoisseurs know there’s more to the dish than melted cheese — and orange-stained fingers afterward. Where do you go to get your nachos fix? Who has the best in town?
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Flavor of Love: What’s so real about this reality show?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Once again, Hotlanta manages to hang on. But I doubt her luck will last much longer; she’s much too self-destructive and brings too much drama wherever she goes.
Who knows? Maybe that’s why Flav keeps her around. At least he seems to have some standards.
Prancer would have stayed in the house but she lied during her performance in the Flavor Flav “hip hopera” insinuating that she had slept with him, when in fact, they hadn’t. Evidently, a real lady never kisses and tells. And Flav doesn’t like liars so she had to go.
Besides, he has four new girls who came on last wee to spice things up. The four new contestants, “Black,” “Prototype,” “Luscious D” and this mannish-looking Amazon he named “Tree” seem to be giving the old girls a run for the money.
They’re certainly cleaner if their distaste for the fruit flies, maggots and gnats they found in the kitchen is any indication.
But don’t count the old girls out. Besides Hotlanta, Sinceer, who looks like Maya, the alien from “Space: 1999,” Seezinz (my now-favorite) and the twins — Thing 1 and Thing 2.
Do you think any of the new girls are an improvement over the old ones? Were you glad to see Prancer gallop off into the sunset of Realty TV has-beens?
Some of you guys say this show and others like it, reinforce old stereotypes about black Americans and black people in general.
True, television and the movies are rife with examples of stereotypes: From hot-blooded Latinos, who always seem to be armed with knives and the pretty-but-dumb blonds, to the slow-witted country bumpkins with the thickest (and usually fake) Southern accents and Italians whose career prospects seem limited to being mafia hoods.
But we live in a pretty mobile society and we’re likely to meet different types of people, even here in metro Atlanta. I grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. and northern New Jersey and I met all sorts of people so television really didn’t shape my views of different races or ethnic groups.
I have to admit, though, TV did shape my view initial (and erroneous) view of southerners because I hadn’t met any until my junior year at university. Up until then, and before moving down here, my basic understanding of the region came from watching “Roots,” “Mississippi Burning,” “Birth of a Nation” and Oprah Winfrey’s infamous jaunt into Forsyth County for her talk show.
But now, in the 21st century is TV the primary vehicle by which we form our impressions of other groups? Do you think a TV show can be representative of any one ethnic group or race or religion? Is TV your main source of insight into how (pick any group) “those people” are?
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The joke’s on you today
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Careful.
You may be the unwitting victim of an April Fool’s gag today. So don’t believe the caller who claims you just won $1 million in a publisher’s giveaway or tickets to the Alicia Keys concert. Or, at least double check before you start screaming in the office.
A quick Google search shows various thoughts about when April Fool’s Day, also known as All Fool’s Day, began. According to Encylopedia Britannica Online, the modern April Fool’s Day may have started in France when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582, moving New Year’s Day from March 25 to January 1. People who continued to observe the end of New Year Week on April 1 were called fools. “The timing of the day also may be related to the vernal equinox (March 21), a time when people are said to be fooled by sudden changes in the weather,” according to Encyclopedia Britannica.
Have you played the fool more than once? What’s the best practical joke you ever played on someone and how have you been duped?
