Sony Ericsson Open: Women's Final Preview

This post is cross-posted to Craig Hickman's Tennis Blog:

Serena Williams (USA) [13] vs	Justine Henin (BEL) [2]

The current #1 player in the world, Belgium's Justine Henin easily dispatched Anna Chakvetadze on Thursday 6-2, 6-3 and (presumably) watched hopefully as Serena Williams battled to a 7-6(4), 6-1 over Israel's Shahar Peer in the evening semifinal.

Amazingly, 5-time Grand Slam champion has only played the 8-time Grand Slam champion once since their controversial 2003 French Open semifinal almost four years ago. Serena leads their head-to-head rivalry 5 to 3 and has only ever lost to Justine on clay. In addition, Justine says she has never played well in the month of March because it is the anniversary of her mother's death; this is her first final in Miami, while it is Serena's 5th appearance (Champion 2002, 2003 and 2004; 1999 Finalist versus Venus). The tournament takes place a few hours drive from the house the two Williams sister own and share in Palm Beach Gardens. Venus has won the tournament three times also, 1998, 1999 and 2000.

However, Justine is one of the most intense fighters on the WTA tour, I would put her right behind Maria Sharapova and just ahead of Serena (by a hair), so she will not go down in a final without a monumental struggle. Despite that, I still believe that if Serena is playing her best, no one on the WTA Tour can beat her.

Mad Professah's pick: Williams in 3 sets.

WHO recommends adult circumcision as HIV prevention measure

The United Nations Programme on AIDS (UNAIDS) announced this week in a joint press release with the World Health Organization the results of three clinical trials conducted in Africa which indicate that circumsized men are 50-60% less likely to contract HIV through heterosexual sex. The results were so striking that the trials were stopped and all participants offered the circumcision procedure.

This is very exciting news for HIV/AIDS prevention efforts in Africa, but as usual, the sticking point is money.

"Money is going to be the key. If additional resources brought to bear, we can have very substantial effects on the AIDS epidemic in East and Central Africa," Ronald Gray, MD [professor of reproductive epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University] says. "These are not cheap resources. There are the costs of training, the costs of equipment and supplies, the costs of all the complexities of providing surgeries and providing postsurgical care and managing any problems that arise."

If money is not forthcoming, the recommendations may do more harm than good. Men in areas with high HIV prevalence are very much aware of the news that circumcision lowers HIV risk.

"There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that men already are lining up asking for circumcision," Gray says. "And if we do not provide safe services, they will seek unsafe services."

Further trials are being conducted to see whether circumcision has a preventive effct on HIV transmission to women and the impact on men who have sex with men.

SB 443 Unanimously Passes Health Committee

Openly lesbian State Senator Carole Migden is carrying SB 443, a bill which would end California's ban on HIV positive men accessing assistive reproductive technologies, joining 48 other states that currently allow the practice. Yesterday, the Sacramento Chronicle reports, the bill earned a rare bipartisan unanimous vote in the Senate Health Committee, which augurs a fast track approval in the Legislature's upper house.

SB 443 is on the list of legislative priorities for the Southern California HIV Advocacy Coalition.

Equal Rights Amendment reintroduced

Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly and Shakespeare's Sister are trumpeting the re-introduction of the equal rights amendment to the United States Consitution:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification

The important point here is that this time there is no deadline by which the amendment must be ratified. (The first ERA expired in either 1979 or 1982, according to Wikipedia.)

The significance of the amendment can not be underestimated for LGBT individuals. The very root of the subordinated role of sexual minorities in American society is based in attitudes about gender roles. The ERA would clearly state that courts would have to apply the strictest level of scrutiny to laws which seek to make classifications based on sex. This has to be good for the gay rights movement. I would hope that LGBT orgs would recognize this and heartily endorse the amendment and work towards its ratification.

Sony Ericsson Open: Women's Semifinal Preview

This post is cross-posted to Craig Hickman's Tennis Blog:

Anna Chakvetadze (RUS) [9] vs Justine Henin (BEL) [2]

Justine Henin-Hardenne does not usually play well at this "fifth Slam" in Miami; in fact, this the first time she has made it past the quarterfinals. She was very lucky to get through a very close match in the previous round versus 6th seeded Nadia Petrova 7-6(4) 7-6(4). Chakvetadze is the "forgotten Russian" who has been having some good results lately (2007 Australian Open quarters) but she hasn't had to play a Top 10 player to get to this stage of the tournament. Chakvetadze and Henin have only played once before with Henin winning at last year's Wimbledon 3rd round Henin has two much variety and forepower for the young Russian to handle. Henin has had a very nice draw at this year's tournament and should have no problem getting to the final and cementing her grip on the #1 spot before she goes off to Europe to defend all her clay court titles from last year.
Mad Professah's pick: Henin.

Serena Williams (USA) [13] vs Shahar Peer (ISR) [14]

Bizarrely, Serena is repeating her 2007 Australian Open draw at this tournament, only in reverse. There, in subsequent rounds she played Shahar Peer (who served for the match), Nicole Vaidisova and Maria Sharapova. Here, she has taken out Sharapova 6-1, 6-1 in a stunning display of power and aggression, followed by her dismissal of Vaidisova and her last obstacle before the final is Henin (who skipped Melbourne because she was going through her divorce at the time). The Israeli player is a very good retriever of the ball and has great stamina but really has no weapon with which she can harm Serena. Serena's sister Venus demolished Peer on her way to winning a Tier III title in Memphis a little less than a month ago 6-1 6-1. If the current #18 ranked player in the world has already demolished the #2 and #8 ranked players why would she have a problem with the #16? These results should indicate to the rest of the women's tour and the "tennis mafia" that winning her 8th grand slam title in January 2007 after a 2-year gap was not a fluke, and that it's possible that Serena Williams may be be the best tennis competitor of all time.
Mad Professah's pick: Williams.

Tennis Shockers: History Repeats Itself, Twice!

At the Sony Ericsson Open tournament in Miami the much vaunted "Serenapova" showdown which pitted reigning Australian Open champion Serena Williams versus reigning US Open champion (and #1 seed) Maria Sharapova ended up with a repeat ending from their last match: Serena Williams in a blowout. This time the beatdown was even worse than in Melbourne, there Sharapova managed to win 3 games, in Miami she only managed two: 6-1, 6-1 in 58 minutes. Clearly Sharapova is suffering a case of the dreaded serving "yips." She had no aces and 8 doublefaults today although her service percentage was 67 but the average speed was well below 100 mph. Serena's service percentage was only 58 and she had only 2 aces to one double fault (but she must have had at least a half-dozen service winners). Serena's average serve speed was a muscular 109.6 mph. Serena had 16 winners to 15 unforced errors (+1) compared to Maria's 8 winners to 16 unforced errors (-8). Serena improved to 4-2 against Sharapova and has now won the last 3 encounters with the Russian. After the match Serena raised one finger, indicating she intends to be or she already considers herself to be?) the #1 player in the world. She will play Nicole Vaidisova in the quarterfinals tomorrow, a repeat of the Australian Open semifinal. Will history repeat itself again?

And this was not the biggest story of the day! World #1 Roger Federer played Guillermo Cañas for the second time in 10 days, and having lost in straight sets to the Argentine at the Pacific Life Open the Swiss player was clearly looking for revenge. However, history repeated itself! Federer lost the match 6-7(2), 6-2, 6-7(5) despite leading 3-1 in the final set and having a "gimme" overhead at 5-5 in the tiebreak to set up match point. Instead of letting the high overhead bounce, Federer hit that overhead into the net, setting up match point for Cañas who grabbed the opportunity with a 125 mph service winner to seal his second consecutive defeat of the World #1 in under a fortnight. Federer had 58 winners to 51 unforced errors (+7) to his opponent's more modest 19 winners to 14 errors (+4). Cañas improved to a lifetime record of 3-1 against Federer as well as 2-0 for the year, while Federer is 14-0 against the rest of the ATP tour. And this is before the clay court season which starts next month, which is widely regarded as the Argentine's best surface. These two defeats have to put once-unthinkable thoughts into the head of Andy Roddick and Rafael Nadal as they contemplate 2007's remaining Grand Slam tournaments in Paris, London and New York.

California HIV-related Legislation

The Southern Coalition HIV Advocacy Coalition (SCHAC) is the main organization tasked with tracking HIV-related legislation and policies in the state of California. The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, AIDS Project Los Angeles, AIDS Healthcare Foundation all have HIV policy staffers but curiously do not have publically available up-to-date policy positions on statewide legislation on their websites (except for an excellent PDF summary at SFAF.org). Below is a list adopted from the most important bills on the organization's bill tracking list for the 2007 legislative session:

State Senator Carole Migden has introduced legislation (SB 443) to repeal a ban on HIV-positive individuals participating in assistive reproductive technology like in vitro insemination if three conditions are met: 1) The HIV positive donor’s sperm is processed to minimize the infectiousness of the sperm for the specific donation; 2) Informed mutual consent has occurred; 3) Sperm processing and testing procedures must be recognized by the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.

Assemblymember Sandre Swanson has reintroduced the condoms bill (AB 1334) carried last year by former Assemblymember Paul Koretz that was mocked and then vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger last summer. The Center for Health Justice on which Mad Professah sits on the board of directors is the main sponsor of this legislation.

Assemblymember Patty Berg has introduced a bill sponsored by the evil AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AB 682) to implement the previously announced routine universal HIV testing policy promoted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The bill would delete provisions from existing law that currently prohibits a person from testing a person's blood for HIV without the written consent of the subject of the test, and would allow HIV tests to be given by verbal consent instead.

Assemblymember Bonnie Garcia has introduced a bill (AB 272) that would mandate that any woman receiving an annual gynecological exam or family planning appointment be provided with information on HIV and AIDS and the woman be offered the option of being tested onsite, if available, or provided referral information to other testing locations. If the woman chooses to be tested for HIV, the bill would require the physician or other health care professional attending the woman at the time the results are received to ensure that the woman receives information and counseling to explain the results and the implications for the woman's health, including any followup care that is indicated.

Assemblymember (and openly gay member) Jon Laird has introduced a bill (AB 110) that would authorize state General Fund money to be spent on the purchase of sterile needles for needle exchange programs.

Assemblymember Mervyn Dymally is re-introducing his controversial bill (AB 66) to mandate HIV testing of all California prisoners incarcerated for over a year. The bill specifies that testing should occur within the first 30 to 60 days of their sentence and within 30 to 60 days prior to their release. The 2006 version of the bill attemped to enact a mandatory HIV testing regime for incarcerated individuals and was strongly opposed by the Center for Health Justice and most AIDS service organizations. The amended version of the bill does include an opt-out provision for prisoners as well as provide for counseling and voluntary consent for partner notification, protections for HIV positive inmates so that they are not denied eligibility for and access to programs, and the development of an in-prison HIV care and treatment program for inmates who test positive and upon release into the community.

Battlestar Galactica 3rd Season Finale Is Frakking Good

Battlestar Galactica aired the last episode of the third season on SciFi Channel Sunday night and it was a doozy! We learned the identity of four of the five unknown Cylons with strong intimations that President Laura Roslin (played by Mary McDonnell) might be a Cylon also.
The four new Cylons are: Saul Tigh (Michael Hogan), Galen Tyrol (Aaron Douglas), Kara Thrace's widower Sam Anders (Michael Trucco) and Roslin's chief of staff Tory Foster (Rekha Sharma). The Cylons are man-made machines (there are only a dozen different humanoid models) who launched a pre-emptive attack on the human colonies, slaughtering billions but a mere fifty thousand survivors who escaped in a motley array of ships and one battleship, Galactica. The idea that there are deadly enemies of humanity living among the survivors who themselves did not know they were Cylons is an absolutely intriguing notion.

If that was not enough to blow our minds rebellious fighter pilot Starbuck appeared to fellow pilot Apollo while they were both in raptors (single occupant fighting spaceships) and claimed that she had been to Earth and could take Apollo there. This is a huge moment in the series because as far as the surviving members of the human race are concerned Earth is a semi-mythical place and Starbuck was last seen (by Apollo) entering the atmosphere of a planet and her ship exploding in a very pretty fireworks display two episodes ago!

Battlestar Galactica is widely regarded as one of the best shows on television by many critics and has already won a Peabody award. It will return in 2008 for its fourth (and possibly last) season.

Oh, and did I mention the "not guilty" verdict in the trial of the century of the former President of the colonies who has been colluding with the Cylons (and who himself thinks he may be one) from the very beginning of the series?

Venus Loses Close Match To Sharapova

It's been more than 20 months since Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova met on a tennis court and today's match did not disappoint. The #1 Seed from Russia defeated unseeded the 3-timeAmerican champion in the third round of the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami on Sunday 2-6, 6-2, 7-5 in a 146-minute match plagued by errors from both players. After leading 2-0 in the first set, Sharapova lost 6 games in a row and the set to Venus Williams, but then broke Williams in the first game of the second set. Sharapova maintained her lead while continuing to hit many of her 13 double faults but evened the match. In the third set Williams raced off to a quick lead of 3-1 and held game point for 4-1 before being broken in two consecutive service games to go down 3-4. She then broke back and held to be leading 4-5 on Sharapova's serve and was two points away from winning the match at deuce during that game.In the crucial 11th game when Williams had opportunities to hold her serve she became tentative and let the Russian dictate play until the American commited a (usually forehand) error. Match point was (another) Venus Williams forehand error sailing more than 10 feet long past the baseline.

Venus Williams missed more than 50% of her first serves during the match (at one point she missed 4 serves in a row or two consecutive double faults in the third set and served only one ace after the first set) and committed 55 unforrced errors to 28 winners (-27). Sharapova had only 22 winners but also only made 36 unforced errors (-14) but her first service percentage was 54% compared to Williams' 49%.

The match (as usual) came down to who played the bigger points better and Sharapova converted 7 of 12 breakpoints while Williams converted one less at 6 of 12.

If Serena Williams wins her (rain-delayed) match against Lucie Safarova tomorrow then there will be a repeat of the 2007 Australian Open final on Tuesday: Maria versus Serena II: This Time It's Personal.

REVIEW: Boy Culture

MadProfessah and a friend from San Diego went to the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theatres in West Hollywood to see Boy Culture at an early Saturday afternoon matinee showing (12:30pm). Boy Culture is based on a well-regarded romantic gay novel by Matthew Rettenmund who also maintains an excellent blog called Boy Culture. Although I rarely run out to see movies in their opening weekend, I have been curious about the movie Boy Culture for awhile since it co-stars Darryl Stephens, who is more well-known for playing the lead character Noah on the groundbreaking but now cancelled black gay cable television series Noah's Arc, as Andrew. It's not often one can see a movie based on work created by a fellow blogger. The film also stars straight television actor and current Advocate cover boy Derek Magyar as X and actor Jonathan Trent as Joey.

Boy Culture is a very enjoyable, cleverly scripted, well-acted, incisive look at contemporary gay male sexuality and culture.

This is not to say that the movie is without flaws or problematic aspects. The foremost of these is the choice of a male hustler (X, played by Magyar) as the central character and narrator of the film. The script actually makes an amusingly deprecating reference to this cliché by saying (I'm paraphrasing) "Since this is a gay film, you should have figured out by know [the central character] is a hustler." This leads to some discomfiting scenes depicting X's "work."

In addition, although the film in general has verisimiltude as a strength, the composition of the household (20-something gay male hustler X, 20-something gay black video store employee Andrew and barely legal nubile freeloader Joey) in a huge, beautifully decorated apartment defies belief. The film does indicate that X is a successful enough hustler that he selectively chooses his client list (older, rich, predominantly white, gay men) and restricts the number to a manageable lucrative dozen clients.

As Rod 2.0 has highlighted recently, the character of Alex was not intended to be African American in the author's original conception of the story. This color-blind casting leads to opportunities for the film to cast its incisive gaze on gay interracial relations as well as homosexuality in the African American community. It tackles both with intelligence and wit.
Of course there's an obligatory reference to "BBD" (big black dick) but there's also an hysterical visit with Andrew's African American family and attendance at Andrew's African American ex-fianceé's wedding.

The direction by Q. Allan Brocka is understated but efficient.

The character of Joey, the 18-year old "gayby" is the comic relief of the piece, played with delightful abandon by Jonathan Trent. Almost everything that comes out of his mouth is side-splittingly funny, usually because of the blissfully ignorant naivete the comments reveal. All gay men over the age of 18 will find something amusing (and familiar) about Joey and his comments.

All-in-all, a film worth seeing, although the screening I attended (admittedly reasonably early on a weekend day but in the heart of the gay ghetto) was very sparsely attended (about 40 people in a theater wihch could hold 300) with the average age of the moviegoers equal to the sum of me and my 20-something friend combined. I believe the film does deserve to reach a wider audience and I hope it does.

GRADE: A-.

Califonia LGBT-related legislation and legislators

The state's largest LGBT civil rights organization, Equality California, has released a list of pending legislation in the California legislature of interest to the LGBT community. Equality California has been incredibly effective in the last 8 years, by sponsoring and shepherding a number of landmark bills into enactment by two Governors. The 2007 slate of bills is listed below:

AB 43 - Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act (Leno)
The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act would guarantee the California Constitution's promise of religious freedom and extend the vital protections afforded by marriage to loving and committed same-sex couples

SB 777 - Student Civil Rights Act (Kuehl)
The Student Civil Rights Act would create uniform nondiscrimination standards within the state’s education code so students, teachers and school administrators clearly understand the protections that are provided within California’s publicly-funded schools and programs.

AB 14 - Civil Rights Act of 2007 (Laird)
Assembly Bill 14, the Civil Rights Act of 20067, authored by Assemblymember John Laird (D-Santa Cruz), would amend existing nondiscrimination provisions to be consistent with the nondiscrimination protections in the Unruh Civil Rights Act and Government Code Section 11135, which prohibits discrimination in state funded programs and activities. AB 14 is the forth in a series of successful nondiscrimination bills authored by Assemblymember Laird and sponsored by EQCA to strengthen major areas of California law and clarify that people are protected from discrimination regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

AB 102 - Name Equality Act(Ma)
This legislation would allow domestic partners and married spouses equal opportunity, regardless of gender, to change their surnames upon marriage or domestic partnership registration.

SB 559 – Fair and Equal Taxation for Surviving Partners Act (Kehoe)
Prior to 2006, California law did not allow registered domestic partners to transfer property between each other without having its value reassessed, which can often result in increased tax liability. The Fair and Equal Taxation for Surviving Partners Act would allow certain domestic partners to seek a reduction in their property taxes if those taxes were unfairly increased prior to the availability of comprehensive domestic partnership protections in California.

One impact of California's decision to move its presidential primary to February 5, 2008 and allow for a ballot measure which would relax term limits is the ancillary effect of saving the California LGBT Legislative Caucus from disappearing. It is no coincidence that Equality California's record legislative success has occurred while the most openly lesbian and gay members of the state Legislature served. In 2008, State Senator Sheila J. Kuehl, Assemblymember John Laird and Assemblymember Mark Leno (or State Senator Carole Migden, depending on who wins their divisive primary battle initiated by Leno) will all be termed out, reducing the number of openly gay members to State Senator Christine Kehoe (who will be termed out in 2012) and whoever wins the Leno-Migden contest. It's possible, but not inevitable that the 13th Assembly district currently held by Leno will be filled by an openly gay or lesbian member. Last year, the 45th Assembly District in which MadProfessah lives which was represented by an openly lesbian member (Jackie Goldberg), but is now represented by straight (Latino) member Kevin DeLeon. If the term limits ballot proposition passes in February 2008 Kuehl, Laird and Leno could all retain their legislative seats. which bodes well for Equality California's ambitious legislative portfolio.

Fox News Channel viewers most rabidly pro-Bush demographic

This poll result from Senator John Kerry's pollster Mark Mellman up needs to become more widely known:

Fox News viewers supported George Bush over John Kerry by 88 percent to 7
percent. No demographic segment, other than Republicans, was as united in
supporting Bush. Conservatives, white evangelical Christians, gun owners, and
supporters of the Iraq war all gave Bush fewer votes than did regular Fox News
viewers.

Anyone surprised? It should be noted that more cable viewers watch Fox News than watch CNN, CNBC or MSNBC.

The Rich Are Cheap

Sunday's Los Angeles Times Current section has a front page article titled "A Wealth of Cheapskates" by Gregg Easterbrook repeating a meme about the paucity of philanthropic donations among the super-rich which has been making the rounds in the last month or so.

Consider the numbers (which are based on current estimates in the recent Slate 60 index of the year's leading philanthropic donors and the net-worth estimates in the Forbes 400). The 60 leading American donors gave away $51 billion in 2006, according to Slate. They were led by Buffett, whose spectacular $44-billion donation — mainly to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose primary cause is healthcare in the developing world — was the largest gift anyone has ever given. These donors had an estimated combined net worth of $630 billion last year, meaning that they gave away 8% of their money, on average. Sounds magnanimous, until you consider that the Dow Jones industrial average rose 16% in 2006 — which suggests that, as a group, the leading donors contributed less than they gained.

Now subtract Buffett and his generous gift from the group, and the rest of them begin to look downright miserly, handing to others a mere $7 billion of a combined net worth of $584 billion — or just over 1%. Numbers from the philanthropy watch organization Giving USA show that Americans as a whole annually give away about 0.5% of their net worth. So, except for Buffett, society's top givers donate to others at only a tad higher rate than the population as a whole. That's, well, pathetic. And that's just counting top givers, not the super-rich who give away little or nothing.

Microsoft mogul Paul Allen, net worth $16 billion, gave away $53 million in 2006, according to Slate — one-third of 1% of his fortune. Software magnate Lawrence Ellison, net worth $20 billion, gave away $100 million — half of 1%. Pierre Omidyar, founder of EBay, net worth $7.7 billion, gave away $67 million — less than 1%. Nike tycoon Philip Knight, net worth $7.9 billion, gave away $105 million — slightly more than 1%.

This is disturbing news, isn't it? Mad Professah gives away around 2% of his "fortune" every year to non-profits like the Center for Health Justice, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, The Williams Institute and Environment California. However, there's no question that a billionaire's largess would have a much greater philanthropic impact than my paltry pennies.

Another interesting fact that we know about philanthropy is that Southern California's rich people give more of their fortunes than Northern California's similarly situated residents.

Mathematicians (finally) completely describe 248-dimensional object

(image courtesy the The New York Times/Peter McMullen)
Mad Professah is excited to report that E8 has been fully described. What the heck am I talking about? Why, all the 248 possible symmetries of a 57-dimensional object, of course! (See visualization above.) Sophus Lie, a 19th century Norwegian mathematican, is the creator of Lie Group Theory, which deals with continuous symmetry.

On Monday March 19th, MIT Mathematics Professor David Vogan gave a talk entitled "The Character Table for E8, or How We Wrote Down a 453,060 x 453,060 Matrix and Found Happiness" (9mb pdf.)

"What's attractive about studying E8 is that it's as complicated as symmetry can get. Mathematics can almost always offer another example that's harder than the one you're looking at now, but for Lie groups E8 is the hardest one," Vogan said.

"E8 was discovered over a century ago, in 1887, and until now, no one thought the structure could ever be understood," said Jeffrey Adams, project leader and a mathematics professor at the University of Maryland. "This groundbreaking achievement is significant both as an advance in basic knowledge, as well as a major advance in the use of large-scale computing to solve complicated mathematical problems."

Fellow gay mathematician J.M. Kreps Professor of Mathematics Robert Bryant of Duke University is quoted in Tuesday's New York Times giving an analogy to describe the significance of the mathematical breakthrough. "Scientists can learn a lot about an animal from its DNA, but to understand it fully 'you have to grow the organism and then study it,' Dr. Bryant said. 'In a certain sense, that is what the E8 team did. They used massive computation to fully develop the group E8 and its representations so that they could list its important features.'"

The Quest Is Over: Good Caribbean Food Found In Los Angeles

BBQ ribs with plaintains, rice and peas, steamed vegetables and johnny cake.

Brown stew chicken with fried plaintains, rice and peas, steamed vegetables and johnny cake.

MadProfessah's long nightmare is now over. My ongoing quest for good Caribbean food in Los Angeles has been completed. I have finally discovered Ackee Bamboo restaurant in Leimert Park. Aparently it's been around for over a year beause I saw a commendation signed by former Inglewood City Councilman (now Assemblymember) Curren Price dated November 2005 praising the restaurant's commitment to the Best of Jamaican cuisine.

Last week, I went to 4305 Degnan Boulevard (at the corner of 43rd Street) and ordered the Special of the Day (barbecue ribs) as well as the brown stew chicken for takeout. Both meals came with fried plaintains, rice and peas, steamed vegetables and johnny cake. The portions were quite generous. The ambience is very simple, with medium-sized photographs of indigenous Caribbean fruits and flowers dotting the walls above cheap but functional furniture.
You come here for the food,m and it does not disappoint.

Both meals were delicious, but particularly the brown stew chicken is something I intend to make a regular habit of ordering. It is moist, tender and spicy without being overly hot. The plaintains were not overly sweet and contrasted nicely with brown stew. The peas and rice were pleasantly starchy as I remember from home-cooked meals. I even ate the steamed vegetables and (what appears to be suspiciously deep fried dough) johnny cake. I found the sauce of the barbecue ribs a bit too sweet, but the meat absolutely fell off the bone, which Leenah enjoyed immensely.

If you are in the Leimert Park area (and even if you aren't, it's worth a special trip during an off-peak traffic hour) to check out the food at Ackee Bamboo.

GRADE: A

Quel Dommage! Mauresmo Out For A Month

World #3 Amélie Mauresmo is going to be off the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour for a month after having surgery on Sunday to have her appendix removed, it was announced on her official website. She will miss "the fifth Grand Slam" officially known as the Sony Ericsson Open which starts Wednesday in Miami. She also did not play in Indian Wells at the Pacific Life Open and her website says that she will return to the tour during the European clay court season in late Spring.

Pay Equity Completes The Gland Slam

Lost among my frenzied coverage of the Pacific Life Open last week was this tidbit that the French Tennis Federation (la Fédération Française de Tennis) announced that it would be offering equal prize money at the 2007 French Open at Roland Garros. Previously, the champions of the Men's and Women's singles draws were awarded equal prize money but there was a discrepancy in the amount awarded to male and female participants who lost in earlier rounds (which, obviously is the vast majority of the competitors).

Last month, All-England Law Tennis Club (which runs Wimbledon) announced that it was going to end it's hold out against pay equity for male and female competitors to great fanfare. The Australian and United States Opens both have offered equal pay to men and women for years. With the FFT's announcement last week, pay equity has completed the Grand Slam!

Barack Obama as 'Magic Negro'

Barack Obama in Hawaii on vacation

This picture appeared in People magazine, alongside other pictures of Hugh Jackman and Penelope Cruz

Openly gay, African American blogger and film critic David Ehrenstein has a typically fabulous op-ed published in today's Los Angeles Times entitled "'Magic Negro' Returns" giving his incisive and cinematic take on the Barack Obama phenomenon:

AS EVERY CARBON-BASED life form on this planet surely knows, Barack Obama, the junior Democratic senator from Illinois, is running for president. Since making his announcement, there has been no end of commentary about him in all quarters — musing over his charisma and the prospect he offers of being the first African American to be elected to the White House.

But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."

The Magic Negro is a figure of postmodern folk culture, coined by snarky 20th century sociologists, to explain a cultural figure who emerged in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education. "He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist," reads the description on Wikipedia http://en.-wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Negro.

He's there to assuage white "guilt" (i.e., the minimal discomfort they feel) over the role of slavery and racial segregation in American history, while replacing stereotypes of a dangerous, highly sexualized black man with a benign figure for whom interracial sexual congress holds no interest.

As might be expected, this figure is chiefly cinematic — embodied by such noted performers as Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Crothers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and, most recently, Don Cheadle. And that's not to mention a certain basketball player whose very nickname is "Magic."

This is absolutely great stuff. Please go read the entire article here for yourself. One of the many things Ehrenstein is doing in this piece is deconstructing the very nature of op-ed page discourse itself. Note the explicit inclusion of a link to a web-based resource (Wikipedia). I also love the references to film characters and the sequioedalian word choices: ersatz paterfamilias, snarky, miscegenation, trope and accouterment!

I think it is a brilliant commentary on the Barack Obama phenomenon. What do you think?

Women Look At Faces, Men Look At Crotches

Jockohomo alerted me to a "funny little article" originally posted by Jason Kottke. It was also referenced in a question on one of my favorite weekend pastimes: the radio show "Wait Wait" on NPR affiliate 89.3 KPCC. According to an article published by USC's Annenberg Center for Communications' Online Journalism Review entitled "Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design" by Laura Ruel and Nora Paul:

When photos do contain people related to the task at hand, or the content users are exploring, they do get fixations. However, gender makes a distinct difference on what parts of the photo are stared at the longest. Take a look at the hotspot below.

Although both men and women look at the image of George Brett when directed to find out information about his sport and position, men tend to focus on private anatomy as well as the face. For the women, the face is the only place they viewed.

Coyne adds that this difference doesn’t just occur with images of people. Men tend to fixate more on areas of private anatomy on animals as well, as evidenced when users were directed to browse the American Kennel Club site.

As Jockhomo says "Nothing wrong with dudes hanging out…checking out each others packages…"

What are YOU looking at?

Hantuchova and Nadal win Pacific Life Open titles

Craig Hickman has pictures of the 2007 Pacific Life Open champions Daniela Hantuchova (d. Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3 6-4) and Rafael Nadal (d. Novak Djokovic 6-2 7-5).