The Real World DC: The Official Trailer

Oh, yes. It's here.

I'm looking forward to some DC drama, and not of the political variety.

Real World XXIII: Washington DC - MTV Shows

(via NBC Washington)

Lou Dobbs a friend to Hispanics, and by proxy, leprosy?

Oh, Lou Dobbs. Methinks your trickery will backfire on you. After all, it's your racism that endears you to your fan base. Not me, but then again, I don't think you were ever trying to endear yourself to me. And I'm OK with that.

What am I talking about, you ask? Check out this snippet from Politico:

“ 'I want to engage in a meaningful and constructive dialogue, and work with those who will work toward real solutions,' said Dobbs, who once falsely accused illegal immigrants of carrying leprosy into the United States."

Dobbsy, you minx. You can't say that illegal immigrants are inflicting a hyper-contagious and thoroughly terrifying skin disease upon unwitting Americans and then invite them over for a game of Yahtzee. It just doesn't work.

I see through your shenanigans, Lou. Pandering to Latinos will do you no good. Should you ever choose to run for office, I have a hard time believing they would ever vote for you.

So does Jon Stewart, who had a mariachi band play The Daily Show theme song when Dobbs visited the program.

Dobbs confirmed Tuesday that he would consider a 2012 run for the White House. I'm not sure what's more hilarious; a mariachi-loving Lou Dobbs or a literate Sarah Palin playing author.

Time will tell.

What's for dinner? Speculation on the menu for Obama's first state dinner.

Tonight, President Obama faces another first of his presidency -- his first state dinner, which will honor Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Weighty topics are expected to be discussed, including Afghanistan, climate change and nuclear energy cooperation. But something else has garnered the attention of the American public. Namely, what will be on the dinner menu.

A New York Times piece by Michele Humes today discussed a longstanding presidential predilection for French fare.

"Despite our presidents’ homegrown tastes, White House state dinners have almost always been distinctly French in flavor. Even the Kennedys, who made a point of serving American wines on state occasions, never thought to pair them with American cooking."

However, the NYT failed to note a key exception. Lesley M. M. Blume of The Huffington Post, however, remembered that the 'freedom fries' loving George W. Bush went tex-mex for his first state dinner, which hosted Mexican President Vicente Fox.

"President Bush heartily welcomed President Fox to the "Casa Blanca" and the evening ended with a whopping fireworks display. The dinner menu nodded both to Mexico's cuisine and President Bush's tex-mex sensibilities:

• Maryland crab & pozole chorizo with summer vegetables
• Pepita-crusted bison
• Poblano whipped potatoes
• Salad of gold and red tomatoes
• Mango and coconut ice cream dome"

President Obama has tapped chef Marcus Samuelsson of Aquavit in New York City for tonight's dinner.

According to Marian Burros at Politico,

"Samuelsson is the most prominent American chef of African descent today. He was born in Ethiopia and adopted by a Swedish couple who raised him in Sweden; he is now a naturalized American citizen."

The question now: what will Samuelsson prepare? Humes is hoping for something that is "American in a more nuanced sense of the word." Curry is said to involved.

I'm all for curry, though I can't help but imagine what a truly authentic American menu would look like. Here are a couple of dishes that might fit the bill, but that I hope (for the love of all that is good and holy) are not served to foreign dignitaries. Or anyone, for that matter:

To start, diners will enjoy deep fried onion rings accompanied with a hearty Kraft cheese dip. For their main entree, a choice between savory meat loaf with Heinz ketchup crust and Dorito chip sprinkles and braised turducken (a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken) with green bean casserole and bacon crunches. Naturally, freedom fries will be available for the table. The meal will conclude with a Snickers cake from Baskin Robbins. There are no vegetarian options.

Ah, the taste of America.

UPDATE: Jane Black of The Washington Post has the scoop:

Potato and Eggplant Salad
White House Arugula with Onion Seed Vinaigrette
≈
Red Lentil Soup with Fresh Cheese
≈
Roasted Potato Dumplings with Tomato Chutney, Chickpeas and Okra
or
Green Curry Prawns with Caramelized Salsify, Smoked Collard Greens and Coconut Aged Basmati Rice
≈
Pumpkin Pie Tart
Pear Tatin
Whipped Cream and Caramel Sauce
≈
Petits Fours and Coffee
Cashew Brittle
Pecan Pralines
Passion Fruit and Vanilla Gelees
Chocolate-Dipped Fruit

Vigorous Student Protests at UCLA over UC Tuition Hike

This post is also featured at the Sum of Change blog and the Zej Media blog.

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News of a steep hike in tuition fees at University of California public schools have students riled up at campuses across the UC system.

The UC’s Board of Regents met at UCLA on Wednesday to approve a plan which will raise next year’s undergraduate fees by an astounding 32%. UC President Mark Yudof told The New York Times that the fee increase was the university’s only choice in light of significant state budget cuts in the last decade. Yudof explained that the university system currently receives half as much, per student, as it did about twenty years ago.

Despite current measures in place which have slashed staff salaries, laid off teaching assistants, eliminated free printing for students and cut library hours, the board insisted that the university will be unable to maintain the same level of academic excellence without raising tuition.

Anger within the student body was most acutely felt at UCLA, where students from across the university system rallied outside the board’s meeting. Protests at times turned nasty, leading to the arrests of several students and accusations of police brutality.

Darlene Tran, a sophomore at UCLA, received bruises to her chest and wrist courtesy of officers responding to protests outside the meeting. Tran said she was chanting with a mass of students blocking the board members’ exit from a university building. She explained that she and others were demonstrating peacefully, but officers used unnecessary force when they pushed through the crowd to clear an exit path.

“From my perspective, I understand why they did it,” admitted Tran. “But I don’t think they needed to have been so aggressive. It was almost brutal, in a way.”

Tran noted that the Board of Regent’s meeting had originally been scheduled to take place on a day earlier on Thursday. She believes that the rescheduling was a deliberate attempt to thwart students’ plans to assemble. Students representing every institution in the UC system planned to bus to rallies at UCLA, but arrived a day late.

“We thought it was very sketchy,” said Tran.

In a last ditch attempt to convince the board to reverse its decision, some students stormed Campbell Hall, a building on UCLA’s campus, and occupied it from 2 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday in protest.

Tran noted that the protests had hit a particularly sensitive chord with students.

“We’re students, we can not handle this fee increase,” said an exasperated Tran. She believes many students will be forced to drop out of school because of the increased fees. “We’re smart and we’re knowledgeable. We know there are other ways, there are other solutions, but we want to be protesting.”

Senior Sharya de Silva said the vigorous demonstration was a unique display of a particularly emotional student body.

“It was more students than I have seen in a long time. When it first started on campus, I would say at least 300 kids [were protesting],” explained Silva. “But then when we walked down Westwood Blvd…another group of students showed up. I think while marching we had around 600 kids.”

She described the scene outside Covel Hall, a building on UCLA’s campus, as “a mad house,” and said she believes about 1000 were protesting there.

Silva echoed sentiments of undue police force against what she described as passionate but nonviolent protest.

“I saw one officer swinging a baton around to try and clear room,” she said. “In the process he hit two guys and almost hit me. This one girl was actually trying to help the cops by calming the crowd down, and they got her. It was sad, she just hit the ground.”

Silva believes the police “didn’t know how to handle the volume of students with that much passion,” and their actions were preemptive measures taken in fear that protests would turn violent.

Despite the widespread discontentment in regard to increased fees and the fervor demonstrated by protesters, some students questioned the effectiveness of such displays.

“Everyone is unified in their opinion about it, well, sucking, but not everyone supports the protests,” said junior Nathan Stein. He said the demonstrations are “causing a lot of disturbance to people living in the dorms and not accomplishing much.”

Both Tran and Silva confessed that they believed the decision made by the Board of Regents will likely stick.

Protests have currently died down, though students continue to stew over the possible implications the increase.

For now though, students must turn their thoughts to another problem: finals. Exams for the fall semester will begin taking place in a matter of days. Little time, said Stein, to worry about tuition.

“I think most students are spending their time studying,” he said.

Wonkette: All 193% of Republicans Support Palin, Romney and Huckabee

This is great. And frightening. But mostly great.

According to Wonkette:

"...this fun “info-graphic” on the Fox News, which explains how Sarah Palin’s supposedly strong 70% support from GOP idiots is still no match for Huckabee’s 63% support, or Romney’s 60%. What?"

Really, the only problem here is Fox's use of a pie chart. It makes sense that a single Republican might support more than one potential candidate, thus accounting for the given percentages.

But clearly, the people in Fox's digital department have forgotten that key lesson we all learned in 3rd grade math class. Sorry guys, but the pieces to a pie chart must add up to 1 whole, or in this case, 100%.

A more appropriate graph would have been a bar chart.

Fox News, write this down. A bar chart. Beacon Learning Center provides a graph tutorial which describes the different charts one can use for various types of data.

Happy learning! Remember, Fox News, knowledge is power.

Lights, Camera, Action! DC Film Tours

The fine folks over at DC City Blog have some info for all you Washingtonians with a longing for tinseltown.

(On Location Tours via DC City Blog) - On Location Tours, the world’s largest TV and Movie locations tour company is now in Washington, DC. See more than 30 locations used in TV shows and movies that were shot in this historic town.

Shop in the mall where No Way Out and True Lies were filmed; stand on the steps where Father Damian fell to his death in The Exorcist; visit the bar used in St. Elmo’s Fire; go to the park used in The Sentinel and see locations from Wedding Crashers, Thank You For Smoking, Election, X Files, Independence Day, Forrest Gump, and many others.

From classic films of the seventies such as The Godfather II, All the Presidents Men, and Being There to the recent Mission Impossible III, West Wing, 24, and The Visiting, the tour of Washington DC TV and movie sites takes tour guests on a journey of the timeline of filming in DC.

The three hour guided tour takes place on luxury coach buses and is led by actors and actresses who share inside industry information. Clips from the movies shot at the locations enhance the overall experience.

Tours run Saturdays at 10am and depart from Union Station.

Detailed information on tours can be found at www.screentours.com. Advance purchase is required, as tours normally sell out. To purchase tickets call Zerve at 800-979-3370. Group and private tours are available.

Pretty ritzy. Washington is getting more glamorous by the day, and we may be seeing just the beginning of its transformation. Once Real World DC and Real Houseswives of DC episodes begin airing, all bets are off.