Barack Obama is becoming more than just a Presidential candidate, but he is quickly becoming a brand. There are a gazillion t-shirts bearing his face and every month he is on a different magazine cover. Will this brand endure if he happens not to win the election? I think it is too early to tell. I am interested to see how many true supporters Barack has or if people just feel the Obama brand is a fashion statement or the cool thing to do. I think this will all come to late as the election pulls closer. If the Obama brand last past the election, especially if he loses, I think Barack will have really accomplished something truly special.
Sick shirt by Undrcrwn depicting Tupac and Biggie. There can only be one best rapper to ever live. In my opinion, Biggie, but that is another discussion. Concept taken from the NBA playoffs advertising campaign. Not sure when this will be available, but this will definitely be a must-buy that everyone will have.
When the NBA implement it's new rule that players had to be one year out of high school before they entered the league, I felt it was completely unfair, unnecessary and beneficial to only for one thing: the NBA. When this rule was implemented, I also knew that someone would come along and challenge this rule in some way because it is simply unfair. That is where Brandon Jennings has done. Jennings who is one of the top point guards in the country and would definitely had been a lottery pick in the is years NBA draft is debating skipping college and playing overseas for money until he is eligible to enter the NBA draft. Jennings, who has a scholarship to play at Arizona, may not be eligible for college becasue of his low SAT scores. Jennings has also made it clear he is not big on going to college. So here is where the option of going overseas to play comes in. I ask however, why should Jennings be forced to make that decision if he does not want to go to school and just wants to play basketball? and Why should Jennings have to settle to play overseas when he is good enough to play in the NBA? 
Obama Lincoln Exhibit in Boston done by artist Ron English. 
The Olympics begin on August 8th and are supposed to represent the world coming together as one to compete on a friendly stage in athletic competition. However, it always seems that the Olympics are always used as a stage for discrimination, racism and prejudice of some sort. I was reading this article, that says that blacks will be banned from bars in China during the Olympics and bar owners were forced to sign an agreement that they would enforce these rules strictly. It is appalling to me that this is even an occurring. It is 2008, and people still have to deal with this sort of racism. To me it is just a reminder that racism is very much alive and that no matter who you are or where you are, you will more than likely have to deal with it on some level. It saddens me that at the Olympics, which is a place where the world is to come together, people are forced to have to deal with this kind of treatment. Will it ever end?
The Dark Knight is simply one of the best movies I have seen and it is definitely the best superhero movie ever made. What intrigued me about the movie more than anything was the theme, idea and moral of the movie. Beyond the message that was being communicated, the way that message was communicated made the move 100 times better. The movie is about 2 and half hours, but not once are you bored. The theme to the movie is that in world of chaos, no one has morals and that when people's backs are put against the world, they will turn on anyone to make things better for themselves, was extremely powerful and thought provoking. 
I love yachts. You can stunt on anyone with a yacht. Russian Billionaire Andrey Melnichenko can now stunt on anyone with a yacht with this assumed $300 million dollar vessel, which is not a record price. This is crazy to me. It looks like a naval submarine, painted white. I have not even seen pictures of the inside, but I am sure it has the most outlandish designs to complement it's 'stealth' look. What makes this boat so special and hated is its radical design does not really follow the guidelines and conform to the standards of a traditional industry. That is what I love about this yacht. It is different and has a style all of its own.
"People say everything happens for a reason. These people are usually women, and these women are usually sorting through a break-up. It seems that men can get out of a relationship without even a 'goodbye', but apparently, women have to either get married or learn something."
"The New Yorker editors also issued a statement Monday saying the cover 'combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are. The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall? All of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that’s the spirit of this cover.'"
This is the statement released by the New Yorker to explain their position in this obscene matter and to clear up why they published this cover. I understand their explanation of satire, but there is also something called stupidity. From this explanation, I think this incident was neither. It looks that this cover was published with intention and that was to boost the rumors and speculations that Obama is a Muslim and possibly a terrorist. Satire is about interpretation, this cover and the images in this illustration are just solidifying and bringing the ridiculous allegations about Obama to life, not playing them off as satire. These are extreme issues that are being discussed. our possible future president is a terrorist considering what this country has faced with terrorism is outlandish and far from satire.
This article talks about a study that links low self-esteem to materialism and the negative effects on that connection. This article could not be anymore true and it definitely explores the fundamental downfall of many people in our country. Today, people fail to realize what is true important in their lives and fail to understand the true meaning of happiness. People have failed to get to know and learn who they are as people and if they do in fact learn who they are, they fail to be happy with that. Happiness for a lot of people is created through validation by others and validation by others is often created through what material possessions we have. The thing with that is that material things always change meaning that we are never happy for a long period of time by living like that. Do not get me wrong, it is okay to have and enjoy material things, but it is not okay to have materials things to make you who you are as a person. My father has always told me that if your things burned down in a fire or were taken from you or you had to give them away today, would you be the same person tomorrow? "Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. The also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Lan Nguyen Chaplin (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign) and Deborah Roedder John (University of Minnesota) found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.
“By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth,” they write in the study, which will appear in the Journal of Consumer Research.
The paradox that findings such as these bring up, is that consumerism is good for the economy but bad for the individual. In the short run, it’s good for the economy when young people believe they need to buy an entirely new wardrobe every year, for example. But the hidden cost is much higher than the dollar amount. There are costs in happiness when people believe that their value is extrinsic. There are also environmental costs associated with widespread materialism.
In the book “Happiness: Lessons From a New Science”, Richard Layard exposes a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most of us want more income so we can consume more. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. In fact, the First World has more depression, more alcoholism and more crime than fifty years ago. This paradox is true of Britain, the United States, continental Europe and Japan.
Statistically people have more things than they did 50 years ago, but they are actually less happy in several key areas. There is also the considerable cost of what materialism does to the environment. We don’t yet know what final toll that could take in terms of quality of life and overall happiness. What many people don’t understand is that if we want to save the environment then at some level we have to buy and consume less. We don’t need to buy so much bottled water, for example. Studies have shown it’s usually not any purer than city tap water, which doesn’t leave mountains of plastic bottles strewn across the nations landfills. It also wastes energy and resources to make those plastic bottles and the many other unnecessary things that both youth and adults alike believe they need to have in order to enjoy life and feel good about themselves.
Mad Magazine summed it up with the statement, “The only reason a great many American families don’t own an elephant is that they have never been offered an elephant for a dollar down and easy weekly payments.”
That funny statement, is only funny because it’s somewhat true. The reason people want whatever is currently “hot” is because they believe it will contribute towards their satisfaction and happiness in life. The word “believe” is the key here. People believe that buying more and more things will make them happy, when in fact research has shown time and time again that this simply isn’t the case. What we do know for sure is that buying more and more unnecessary things is damaging our planet and contributing to global warming.
Sure, one person being less materialistic isn’t going to make a noticeable impact on the environment, but it will make a positive impact in that one life. Once entire nations start to understand the myths about what really makes individuals happy, the world will stand a fighting chance."
"The Jordan 6 Rings isn’t set to release for more than a month (8/16), but pairs have been surfacing earlier than expected. For those not familiar with the background of the shoes, the Jordan 6 Rings is a hybrid of the 7 Air Jordans that Mike wore in his efforts to achieving his 6 NBA Championship rings. Listed below are the elements from the shoes represented on the Air Jordan 6 Rings:
Air Jordan 6 - Lacelock on laces, heel loop
Air Jordan 7 - Huarache style inner sock
Air Jordan 8 - Fuzzy tongue logo, Velcro strap
Air Jordan 11 - Silhouette of upper
Air Jordan 12 - “T W O 3″ on tongue, metal lace loops at top
Air Jordan 13 - Outsole
Air Jordan 14 - Jumpman at bottom of tongue near the toe"
