63.

SO what’s a boy to do?

Having recognized the import of using tags, how is a blogger supposed to balance what is truthfully important with what will recognizably provide their blog with a readership?

Here’s a partial answer:

Both Top Model & The Tyra Banks Show has a larger audience than Leno or Letterman, individually;

Tyra’s audience is primarily composed of people less than 50 years old, typically female-

Oprah’s audience is apparently 50 year-olds or older.

At the end of each taping, a photo of Banks, head to toe, is posted on the show’s Web site with links to information on where to purchase whatever she had on.

• From her two shows, Banks makes an estimated $18 million a year, and her net worth is around $75 million. She owns 25 percent of “Top Model” and last fall Bankable Productions signed a deal to develop projects for Warner Brothers television. Their first project is “The Clique,” based on the national best-selling series about a group of preteen girls from the wealthy suburbs of New York. True to Banks’s practical nature, “The Clique” will be produced on a low budget and will be sold only as DVDs, avoiding the costs (and risks) of theatrical distribution.

• Over and over, she told me that she defines the Tyra brand as “attainable fantasy,” but that description seems a bit narrow. Banks, like Winfrey and Stewart, is dedicated to dreams coming true through work and determination; empowerment, especially for young women, is Banks’s actual “attainable fantasy.”

v.

So, what is this?

This is the choice our media has tastelessly succumbed to. The two dotted lines are taken directly from the NYT Magazine article “Banksable.”

In earnest, this article, while informative, was a gigantic waste of time.

On the other hand, Pakistan’s struggle against military dictatorship by Musharraf and the struggle of Lawyers- yes that’s RIGHT, you heard me correctly- in, essentially fighting the government for rule of LAW over military tyranny, took a back-page to Tyra.

Over 116,000 lawyers protested against the Pakistani ousting of a Supreme Court Justice, in an unprecedented political move. In part, this came about because Justice Chaudhry, the Chief Justice refused to submit to the request for his resignation on television in front of Musharraf. He was then removed from office and placed under house arrest.

This article has SO many more compelling stories, insights, and values written into it, that I wonder how it is that Tyra gets the cover?

America,

They are us and we are them.

To the extent that Tyra represents political power, she should be commended.

Her business sensibilities, lauded.

However, we ourselves refuse to stand up against our most tyrannical president ever.

There is no impeachment trial underway against Gay-org Bush.

There is not an international effort to challenge his office for their lies which have resulted in the deaths of thousands based upon their “weapons of mass destruction” (never found) and “War on Terror.”

And it is quite possible that we as a nation are responsible for NOT STANDING UP AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT, because we are too busy watching Tyra.

Or Top model.

Or Clique-

(coming soon).

I feel like it is important to look around the world and ask:

What role has America played in supporting democracy within its own borders?

Is there full empowerment?

Can there be empowerment through voting, when our policies disenfranchise felons from voting?

More African American males are likely to go to jail than to go onto college; and while we’re breaking into other nations in order to support democracy, our nation single-handedly refused to act in support of Pakistan’s democratic principles BECAUSE MUSHARRAF SUPPORTED THE WAR ON TERROR.

Their goal of democracy was only sufficient to stifle America’s support of a military dictator.

For those of you who have the opportunity, please, I implore you:

Read the article on The Lawyers’ Crusade.

For my part, I will purchase a black tie and will wear it from now on whenever I go to court in solidarity of people who fundamentally believe that a separate judiciary is the cornerstone of a true democracy because those who are empowered have the duty to represent the oppressed as well as the general populace as fairly as possible.

This is an attainable fantasy as well. I put that out there as a statement and a challenge and out of love for humanity and out of defiance against those who would seek to control our future without our permission, consent, or endorsement. (that means you too, Hillary- you whiny-ass loser; step DOWN already. Challenging the DNC on the lost votes was more unbecoming than anything you disclosed on Tyra that you felt about your physical attributes)

Ethics Committee,

You’re (not?) gonna love me for this one-

A. Nonymous