Because jailing individuals is a public cost, it is no surprise that U.S. and state governments have chosen to outsource in response to prison overcrowding. But this study brings up another point. Cutting costs and generating revenue at the expense of people of color is a tradition deeply woven in the fabric of American history.

Bong Joon-ho‘s Snowpiercer opened in the director’s native South Korea last week...It has broken box-office records at home and is...well-reviewed across the board. But...the film has yet to announce a U.S. opening date. Now we know what the holdup is...Harvey Weinstein reportedly has plans to chop up Snowpiercer, reducing its running time by about 20 minutes...It’s because in his opinion...Midwesterners..."[his] aim is to make sure the film ‘will be understood by audiences in Iowa… and Oklahoma’”...The cuts will remove much of the character work to make the film play more like a traditional action movie...voiceovers will be added to the beginning and end of the film.

...volunteers help clean out [a] mobile home near Shawnee, Oklahoma...

Each poster depicts a player surrounded by layers of illustrations of cultural iconography and geographical landmarks relevant to their city. 

...reads like a kind of Dust Bowl "Lolita," its story as disquieting and brutal if not as elegantly told. Still, the prose is rich with historical detail and local color, and borrows from the likes of Cormac McCarthy...

Ignoring the fact that Latinos founded the city of St. Augustine, hundreds of years before Florida became a state in 1845, and set roots in the West (from Oklahoma to California) long before the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made this land part of the US. Ignoring the fact that all Puerto Ricans, nearly one of ten Latinos, have been US citizens since the 1917 Jones Act. The fact that nearly two-thirds of all Latinos are native-born US citizens, and more than one-quarter of foreign-born Latinos are naturalized US citizens should count for something. But since 1 in 3 Americans believe that more than half of all Latinos are undocumented immigrants. The only logical conclusion is, not only have Latinos not been accepted as equals by those who believe “American” is synonymous with “white,” we’ve been targeted for even greater marginalization.

A U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) team has found that a sharp jump in earthquakes in America’s heartland appears to be linked to oil and natural gas drilling operations.

Who is Crescent native Bradley Manning, and why would he allegedly leak classified documents?

This documentary is more than a view of the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. It is an analysis of social, economic, religious, and human ethics yet investigated. The residents of Tulsa guide you through the evolution, and lack of, of their city. Religious leaders, an attorney, a councilman, a ommunity activist, and an educator guide you through this seething examination of the socioeconomic and racial paradoxes of America.

the quartet’s members each had a celebrity lookalike: Mark Calderon, who serenaded the “Beverly Hills, 90210” crew at the Peach Pit, was a dead ringer for ex-Wham! singer George Michael. Sam Watters, dogged by Kenny G comparisons, is haunted by the sax-y similarity to this day. Kevin Thornton, the Milli Vanilli lookalike, battled sex addiction and suicidal thoughts before Jesus told him to quit the group. And Bryan Abrams’ mug makes the most post-Badd headlines, although they’re from the police blotter.

Another big break came in 1989. Abrams and Thornton both worked at the Penn Square Mall multiplex, where the band sang an impromptu audition for heavy metal heroes Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora after spotting the group’s tour jacket...“We went and sat in back of Jon Bon Jovi while he watched a boring movie,” Watters said. “Bryan was always the best salesman out of all of us. He said, ‘John, can we sing a song for you?’” Abrams said his trademark pitch would be “just 60 seconds of your time, man.”

“Bon Jovi said, ‘All right, let me hear what you guys got.’ And we started singing ‘Daddy’s Home,’ and I could see his eyes as we were singing: ‘Wow, these guys can really sing.’ He asked us, ‘How would you guys like to open up in front of 20,000 people tomorrow night?’ And we’re like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ So they let us open on stage, and that’s pretty much how everything went,” Calderon said.

Since CMB was a mixed-culture group, the music industry didn’t know how to market the diversity, Calderon said. “We weren’t an all-white group or an all-black group,” he said. “Plus, on top of that, we sounded R&B whenever we’d sing, so that threw them off even more. It didn’t sound like a bunch of white guys singing. Our sound didn’t match our faces.” CMB, which earned 1992 Grammy nominations, won Best R&B/Soul Single and Song of the Year at the Soul Train Music Awards that year.