MERRY CHRISTMAS

Required Reading: For the Diehards

“Fall Out Boy hasn’t been this good, this tight, possibly ever. They also haven’t been this varied, either in song selection and sound.

Now, with Stump’s voice sounding better live with every record and the band playing harder than ever, it seems Fall Out Boy is once again poised to take the world – or at least the iPods of teenagers everywhere – by storm.“

Photo from The Orange County Register

The Obama Cabinet: How Do We Look?

It looks as if the “post-racial” President-elect is using race-based criteria to choose his cabinet. The AP Reports:

President-elect Barack Obama, soon to be the first black U.S. president, is on the road to making good his pledge to have a cabinet and White House staff that are among the most diverse ever, although some supporters are asking him to go even further.

He added to the minority representation at the top of his administration Wednesday when he named New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Hispanic, as commerce secretary.

Some Latinos are grumbling it is not enough after all the support they gave him in the campaign, and gays and Asian Americans are pushing for some representation in remaining cabinet posts. But overall Obama is allaying early concerns that a black president wouldn’t need to put so much importance on diversity of those working under him.

Here’s a better idea: choose cabinet members based on experience, not appearance. If you truly want America to be indifferent toward skin color, then don’t select its leaders by using race as a central factor.

Some are marking seats at the table, designating different spots to certain ethnicities.

Floyd Mori, chairman of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans, said with black and Hispanic people chosen for the cabinet, “what is missing now is an Asian American.” He said given Obama’s upbringing in Hawaii and his understanding of their community, they are optimistic he will appoint at least one.

Mori must have forgotten that President-elect Obama is selecting cabinet members, not racial ambassadors. Richardson will be the American Secretary of Commerce that happens to be Hispanic, not the Hispanic Secretary of Commerce, unless we will also have a designated Caucasian Commerce Secretary.

But if we’re going to determine which identities are missing from the cabinet, let’s cover all the bases. Where is the Evangelical Christian and the Mormon appointees? Or the transgendered Samoan? What about the token red head? Is there a cabinet member representing tall people?

The cabinet may look good, but let’s make sure that it can perform well first.

Keepin’ It Real: The Tamra Barney Show

Lauri’s daughter, Ashley, launched a start-up skin care product business that inspired me to create my own line of toothpaste. Like her, I know nothing about the product but am justified in my pursuit by the mere fact that I use toothpaste everyday. When you’ve got a reality show, you can do anything that you set your camera crew to.

If you don’t know what I’m referring to, you must not have seen last night’s episode of the Real Housewives of Orange County. It may as well serve as the pilot episode for a new spin-off series featuring Tamara Barney, as the “hottest housewife” showed us why she can keep a show interesting all by herself. Tamra may not actually be getting a time slot of her own, but her boorish inability to think before she speaks could easily fill an hour of television and bring in the ratings. Her unladylike behavior in the lingerie store and her brash suggestion that new housewife Gretchen left her first husband because he wasn’t wealthy were just some of the sidesplitting scenes that make the case for a seperate Tamra Barney how.

Meanwhile, Vicki gave us a glimpse into her worldview through her frustration with golf and fishing. With her blackberry glued to the palm of her hand, Vicki questioned the usefulness of waiting hours to catch something only to throw it back into the water, or getting a ball into a hole 18 different times. Call it the Vicki Gunvalson doctrine; if it isn’t productive, then don’t do it.

Tamra, of course, had to put in the last word: “You won’t be getting any balls in your hole.”

Briana, Vicki’s daughter, deserves an award for tolerating her mom’s personality. She also deserve a Costco size bottle of Aspirin.