Hip-hop's version of municipal bonds

Following up on a recent post, I found this article: The Game Is Up (Brendan I. Koerner, Slate.com)

It's a pretty dead on summary of why Dr. Dre does so well. He's obviously got production talent. But he's got great ability to pick talent. But he's also got great ability to keep things in control and not get over-exposed. The article mentioned Eminem, Fiddy, and The Game as rappers that Dre has made, but completely forgets to mention Snoop as well.

Sorry to say that Snoop has gone the other way and is really just out to make a quick buck now; you can tell that by all the crap he puts out now. Sure, his singles are catchy and they get mass radio play, but after a month or two, that's it. Can you name a Snoop track from more than 3 months ago? I can remember Drop It Like It's Hot, bt beyond that all I remember is the song with all the Brazilian chicks in it. What was it called? Who knows.

But you'll never forget Doggy Dog World or Ain't No Fun. And why is that? Dre produced 'em. If someone else had produced Snoop's first album, I'm sure it would have been crap. But instead, there was so much buzz about the guy that he was on top of the world before he even had an album out! Same with Fiddy (In Da Club) and The Game (How We Do). It's not the rappers who are immortal, it's the producer who's immortal (Excuse me if I call Dre an immortal). And it's all because he goes for quality rather than quantity. Even if it means moving onto new rappers so he can keep tight control over the quality.

But this article speaks to a lot of what makes greats into immortals. There are many out there who could produce 10 times the material that they do, but they spend the time to make sure that what ends up coming out goes beyond what anyone could produce. Take U2 for example. A friend and I always talk about how U2's B-Sides are better than 90% of the music that's ever put out. And those are the tracks that U2 think are not good enough for their albums! I'm sure that if U2 had not recorded 100 tracks in studio just to narrow it down to 11 or 12 tracks for an album, their track record wouldn't be nearly as good. They might be able to live off their laurels for an album or two, but after that it'd be caput.

So there you go. It's not just hype and marketing. It's anticipation based on the quality work that the artist or producer has put out in the past. When that past work is consistently good, you can count on good shit the next time you hear their stuff. There are so few of these types of people, and that's what takes them beyond just great and makes them immortal.

Salt March

Today is the 75th Anniversary of the start of Gandhi's Salt March in India. Gandhi started this march not just to protest the taxation of salt by the British, but to make a grand spectacle of such injustice. Sure enough, the entire nation was held captive by these events and many consider this march to be the start of the national capaign for a Free India.

Here's a site with a good rundown of the March. The entire site is actually put together by a professor at UCLA who's class I took while there. Good stuff there about the entire Indian experience.

Here's some coverage of the commemoration of the 75th anniversary in India where there is a re-enactment of the entire march.

Additionally, we at Young India have published our newsletter, Samay, with special features about the Salt March. The newsletter is a monthly publication (I'm the Editor-in-Chief) so give it a read as there is some interesting analysis there about other issues of the day.

BFF-Unit!

We can all rest easy now as the rap world is back on its axis. If you've been keeping track like I have, you'd know that 50-Cent and The Game have made up after a little throw down in the lobby of the Hot 97 studios in New York.

I know this is HUGE news to all you Nelly fans out there, so that's why I gotta break it down. Here's a HARD-HITTING article from MTV about 50-Cent dropping The Game from G-G-G-G-G-G G-Unit!. Mysteriously, there were shots fired in the lobby of the Hot 97 studios when our man Fiddy was doing an interview of upstairs. Apparently it was The Game's posse throwin down. It all blew up from there.

The homie Funkmaster Flex initially offered to negotiate. After all, hip-hop's about the love and Flex got muscle in the game to keep things mellow. Flex quickly realized the seriousness of the situation and pulled his offer to negotiate. He must have read this article on MTV about how Fiddy and The Game have had troubles from the start.

Well, apparently it's all gravy between the two loveable rappers. BBC has called it in favor of the Harlem Boys Choir which somehow came away with $253,500. So what lead these two to kiss and make up? This writer suspects Dr. Dre had something to do with it. He can't let a shooting or two impede his way to 200 million records sold.

I can finally fall asleep at night knowing these two are BFF. In fact, I think they should take my suggestion and rename the crew to BFF-Unit. Now let me go rationalize how I could have just spent more than 30 minutes on writing this and making the heart image.

Chaaterific

Yes, I can make up words.

Since I grew up in Southern California, I tend to compare NorCal with SoCal now and again. I used to do it much more often (like everyday when I first moved up here), but I still do it even though I've lived here for five years now.

One of the big differences I've always noticed between the two regions is the type and quality of Indian food. This is all generalization, but I feel like the Bay Area has a much better array of Indian food options. SoCal has many restaurants, but most are North Indian and most are sit-down. The Bay Area has a bigger variety ranging from North Indian cuisine to South Indian and there are many, many fast food joints including Chaat places. It's so noticeable that even my parents comment on it. When they come up to visit, we usually take them to at least one fast food Indian joint since the food is so good and it's like half the price of most Indian restaurants in SoCal.

Well, it seems the New York Times has noticed the evolution of Indian restaurants and the emergence of Chaat as a central item that Indians crave: Mumbai to Midtown, Chaat Hits the Spot (Julie Moskin, NY Times)

If you've read to this point and you're STILL wondering what the hell chaat is, well, read the damned NY Times article! But if you really don't want to read it here's the run down: chaat is a catch-all term for Indian snacks. It's usually consists of sev (fired noodles, I guess you could say) mixed with various chutneys and melded into spicy sweet goodness. A lot of it is fried so I wonder exactly how bad for one's health the stuff is, but no matter, a good chaat can be better than an In-N-Out burger (and that's saying a lot!)

We'll go for chaat occasionally, but when we go to India it's a dangerous pleasure. Dangerous you say? Well, here, the food is made in relatively sanitary environments, but in India chaat is usually sold from carts along busy streets (as you can read in the NY Times article). The more establish vendors (called Chaat-wallahs) have moved into roadside buildings, but the ideas the same. So as a tourist not used to the food there, we risk getting sick just to enjoy the goodness. Yes, it's a pleasure worth risking your life over!

That being said, I'm starving and it's not close to lunch time yet!

***UPDATE***
Yes, Sepia Mutiny has already posted about this. I should check them before making any posts about Indian related articles in any newspaper :). Here's the link to their posting: Chutney Lady (Manish, Sepia Mutiny)

Butts Are Bad

Cigarette butts that is.

My wife was watching her Indian soaps the other night and I noticed a message across the bottom of the screen in bright, bold lettering: "SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH"

The scene in the show had a woman puffing on a butt in the hospital (Let's forget about how unhealthy this might be to patients in the hospital). It's interesting to see this message displayed. It's something we'd never get in the US. I guess it's the Indian censor board's (or ZeeTV's) attempts at letting viewers know what's up with smoking. I remember there was a mild controversy around Bollywood actors lighting up on screen all the time and making it look cool.

And that's what this is about. The main reason people start smoking is because it's cool. They get messages about how bad it is for one's health, but they smoke nevertheless (I should note that I'm a very occassional smoker, usually only lighting it up when I'm very drunk...last time I lit one up was New Year's Eve...and before then? Who knows...) So I figure that these logic-based approaches to anti-smoking campaigns can't do much good. In Canada and Europe they have pictures of diseased lungs on cigarette packs. I guess that might revile people more than a simple warning message on the side of the box. But again, my guess is that people already know about all the diseases that smoking causes and seeing a picture of it isn't going to bring it home any better.

So switch to current American anti-smoking ads. Have you seen those ads for The Truth? These are pretty slick. The latest one is a fake comedy show about cigarette execs coming up with new ways to entice young people to smoke.

So I won't go into my whole analysis of this. Have a read of How To Get Teens Not To Smoke (Seth Stevenson, Slate.com). I think his analysis is pretty dead on. Reading his piece is what made me think about the relative non-utility of the usual anti-smoking campaigns we're used to. I wonder if other countries will pick up on this campaign method. Hope so.

Wrap Up

Here are a few articles from recent reading which you might find interesting

• The 7 Percent Delusion (Daniel Gross, Slate) - I find Daniel Gross's pieces quite interesting since he tries to put numbers to a lot of the Discussions of the Day. In this case, he compares results you can expect from stocks versus bonds. Just a little more information about why you should be sceptical about Social Security & private account projections. He certainly has liberal leanings but I appreciate the numbers based approach he takes. That being said, just remember that statistics can always be worked to make your argument look good ;)


• Many Uphappy Returns (Paul Krugman, NY Times) - Gross refers to this Krugman op-ed from February. When I originally read it back then I meant to post a blog about it but didn't have time to really comment on it. Anyways, here's the time to read this short op-ed. Again, when it comes to numbers you can only be more sceptical about the plans for privatization. Let's be frank and say that the real debate is about the philosophical underpinnings of Social Security and not the financial viability. Some politicians are finally being honest about that so that's good. I don't mind a debate on the philosophical reasons for and against SS. In fact, I welcome honest debate on that. If you're going to talk financials, the program in real trouble is Medicare, not SS. So let's move on


• What Bush Got Right (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek Online) - Good piece. Zakaria mentions that Bush needs to get the "small things right". On the second page, he goes on to detail the small things. I wouldn't say that they're exactly "small" things, but this one line from his piece summarizes it: "Every country, culture and people yearns for freedom. But building real, sustainable democracy with rights and protections is complex." I honestly hope Bush gets this right. No matter how dishonest I believe his policies, politics, and methods are, I sincerely hope this ends up right. Make sure you read onto the second page of this piece as I believe the real meat is in the latter half.

That's it for now. Happy reading.

Wrap Up

So I'm going to try something different from my random musings: a regular update. I read so much stuff on the web that I figure I should pick out the most interesting things and post them up here. I will not likely add my comments about each piece, but we'll see. It's your choice about reading these things or not. I can't promise to do one of these things every day, but I'll do my best to keep it regular. I'll call it "Wrap Up" just as a way to denote that the post will generally wrap up a collection of articles into a single spot.

That being said, I'll still post random nonsense. Without further ado, here's today's reading which focuses on the Middle East:

• Playing with Dominoes (Slate) - Blog Chatter about the democracy happenings in Lebanon, Egypt, etc. Amazing stuff that's going on, but my only caution about this is that democracy is not simply the act of calling for elections. Democracy is an instituion which supports itself, it's not an event.
  


• Was George Bush Right About Freedom and Democracy? (Slate) - More to the point about what's going on in the Middle East right now. If I haven't been clear about this, I truly believe some of this can be tied to the Bush Admin's actions, but much of it was already in the works. Moreover, we can't yet be completely joyous at the turn of events. Specific to Lebanon, assuming a government truly representing the people arises, that means Hezbollah will be a major power broker. And as we know, Hezbollah still supports bombing in Israel.
  


• Something Stirs (The Economist) - And in case you thought I was just presenting a liberal or progressive point of view, here's basically the same angle from The Economist, which has generally been supportive of the Bush Admin.
  

In the end, I think this still comes down to Iran since that is whom the Bush Admin has been targetting. The focus since the murder of Lebanon's former PM has been on Syria, but Iran is still the country with the biggest influence in the region. Plus, the lack of democracy in these countries has supressed the in-fighting that would otherwise occur between various factions. We're seeing that in Iraq everyday. So while it's great and amazing that progress is being made, we're not homefree. The ultimate success here won't be known until quite a while from now and will require a very fine-tuned foreign policy play.

Alternate reality TV

I was looking through bills last night while my wife was watching ZeeTV. For those that don't know, ZeeTV is an Indian channel which shows Indian movies as well as soap operas. My wife will kill me for saying this, but she's addicted to those soaps.

But that's another story, for another day :)

In any case, there are some pretty odd commercials during these soaps. Normally, my wife forwards through these ads (Thank God for DVR!), but last night she was watching live TV so no forwarding.

An ad comes up and I caught this slogan in between flipping through bills: "Don't marry the biggest mistake of your life"

Huh?

It seems pretty odd that a company would use such a slogan, but I couldn't help but laugh at this one. What company would try to scare me into using its services? Well, it's a company called JeevanSathi.com. In Hindi, that means Life Partner. So clearly it's a marriage hook-up site, but why scare us? Do the genuises behind this ad really think that if I'm looking for a mate, I'm going to run to this site because I'm scared? Moreover, if I'm really that scared I would probably just run to mommy and get her to find me a good obedient bride

So that got me thinking about some other wierd ads on ZeeTV. There's this one ad for loose black tea. I'm not sure what brand. Set scene with a marginally decent looking girl walking into an Indian grocery store. Ok, let's just call a spade a spade. She ain't all that. The tea company clearly didn't pay for a make-up artist and chick can't afford even walking by the MAC counter at Macy's. So then a guy walks into the same grocery store. Now this guy is clearly a FOB. Don't ask me why I know this, I just know.

So both these two look at the shelf and there's only one bag of tea left! Oh No! So they both run over and the fobby dude gets a hand on the bag before the ugly chick.

Now, if this ad was aimed at a more western audience, what would you expect to happen? Amongst various things, I'm sure the chick would somehow end up with the tea bag and the guy would be assed out. Or maybe the two would work out some sort of deal to both enjoy the tea. They would be some snarky comments between the two and that would be the end of that.

Now, what would happen if this ad was aimed at a fob audience? Well, the two do work out a deal of some sorts. But it's gotta be the most sexist deal I've seen in an ad.

As soon as the dude grabs the tea, the chick says in Hindi, "I make really good tea" in this really flirty voice. The Fob bugs out his eyes. I'm sure if the camera zoomed out we'd notice the guy's gonna have a tough time walking (ahem). So this doesn't seem all that odd since it would set the scene for the chick ruining the dude's day somehow. Afterall, it's pretty common for a guy to get assed out in a TV commercial. But what happens next is really surprising. The scene moves to what must be the fob's house. Dude is wearing old school pajamas, chick is wearing some sort of Indian outfit. Both are drinking tea at the dining table.

So what I get from this turn of events is that the chick wanted the tea so badly that she would sleep with an ugly fob to get her caffiene high. She'd not only sleep with him, she'd wait until the next morning to get her hit. Moreover, SHE made HIM the tea!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

Ok, let's look at this calmly. What audience would this ad be appealing to? The only guess I can make is that ugly fob dudes would love it. They can now stalk Indian grocery stores and get random chicks to sleep with them. More realistically, these dudes would laugh at the ad and think "Man, I wish I was him, he's cool"

But let's look at the reality. Most of these shows are watched by Indian women. IF an Indian man watches it, it's probably alongside his wife, mother, daughter, or some other women. Not to say these shows can't be appealing to men, but seriously, how often are guys watching these things alone on weeknights? The guys who might do this are more likely still in the office tapping away at their keyboards.

That being said, the guy who's watching with a woman may want to think he's got game like the ugly fob in the ad, but outwardly, he's gotta act like the ad is outrageous. The woman watching it should clearly think the ad is outrageous. Who the hell would sleep with a dude for tea?! The women watching this ad should rightly be pissed and not ever want to buy that brand of tea. The guys watching this with their spouses wouldn't want to buy the tea because once they brought it home it would be thrown straight in the garbage by their wives. Plus, they'd have to go without dinner!

Think about that? Most of the people watching this ad would immediately hate the brand and think, "What the hell is this company trying to tell me? If I don't get what I want, I should do whatever's necessary to get it, but I should make sure to serve men so they'll be happy with me?"

These ads clearly show there is some other alternate reality for these companies. One company feels comfortable with scaring potential customers into using their service. The other company feels comfortable is showing blatantly sexist scenarios even though the majority of their audience is women.

I dare say it's an alternate Fob universe, but seriously, no matter how conservative or clueless you are, you can't be encouraged to spend your money on these brands. They just insult everyone's intelligence.

And you wonder why I don't watch these shows :)

What was that song?

Have you ever seen an ad and wanted to find out what song they had playing? Usually these ads are forgettable except for the music featured. Well, I realized that I've never mentioned my source for finding out this info.

Now, the homie Anish seems to know a hell of a lot of songs, especially hip hop, but most of these ads have songs pulled outta nowhere and its tough to know the song just off of memory. So what's the source?

It's a website called AdTunes. The people who run the site put pretty full descriptions and information a few times a month, but they've also a very active forum where you can simply ask others about the song or search through previous posts. If you know the brand being advertised and what was featured in the ad, you can usually find an answer in a few minutes. Most people also provide links into the iTunes sample of the song so it's easy to double-check. In fact, you can find info about songs featured in ads, tv shows, movies, the whole nine yards. Pretty cool.

Oh, and since I know you're wondering: That iTunes Shuffle song? It's by The Caesars and it's called "Jerk It Out". And those Vonage commercials with the silly song (which, by the way was also featured on Chevy Cobalt ads for a minute)? It's by the 5,6,7,8's and it's called "Woo Hoo"

No go watch some more TV and (il)legally download the songs from all the ads you love.

More Aishwarya in America

The viral emails didn't go around about this appearance...prolly because it was on TV too early for most of us. Besides, I prefer to watch the informercial better known as The Today Show. But CBS is pimpin Ms. Rai to the fullest. (Or would Aishwarya's agent be the pimp and CBS the john? Where's Snoop Dogg when you need him? Wish I had a sidekick to ask him...)

In any case...since I know you all want to follow the annoying laugh wherever it goes...

The Early Show's Harry Smith interviews Aishwarya Rai. (via DesiBlog)

At this point, I think it's time I start asking non-desis if they've even heard of Aishwarya. Honestly, I think only Indians care that she's on TV. There may be some media types that are tracking her, but the average movie-goer? Doubt it.

But you know what the ultimate coup would be? If Aishwarya's agent got her a spot at the Oscars to present some award. People may not pay much attention to Letterman, Nightline, or The Early Show...but the Oscars? That's straight P-I-M-P!

I'll report back soon about my findings about the non-desi awareness of our favorite star.

**UPDATE**
So I asked two female colleagues about Ash. All I mentioned was that there is this Indian film star who's in a Hollywood film and they knew who I was talking about! They didn't know her name, but one knew that she had won some pageant (she thought it was Miss Universe, not Miss World) and had seen an ad for Bride and Prejudice and would like see the movie because "It looks like a cute movie. A chick flick". The other had seen her on 60 Minutes and watched the whole interview; she also knew about the movie but didn't plan to watch it.

So whaddya know? I guess some non-desis actually know about her. Not that they care, but they know. That's half the battle for Aishwarya's pimps, ain't it?

Blogosphere or Blingosphere?

It's the same thing Nucka!

While this comparison of rappers and bloggers has a lot of jest in it, it's pretty interesting how there are similarities in this. Have a read: Rappers and Bloggers: Separated at birth!


You gotta admit, the desire for someone to become a rapper is very similar to the desire for someone to become a blogger. You want to be heard! You want to tell your story! And you don't want The Man telling you what should be heard and what isn't important. It's important if you think it's important. And you can tell people what's important with a Mic or a keyboard.

Anyways, Josh Levin's piece is certainly tongue-in-cheek, but think about it. Maybe you have more in common with Jay-Z than you thought ;)

Religion, Sprituality, and Community

I found this article about a teen survey called the National Study of Youth and Religion and it got me thinking again about religion's place in the world today and more specifically, amongst desi youth.

So here's the link to the MSNBC report about the National Study of Youth and Religion

Overall, this study (like many studies out there) doesn't surprise me. It simply quantifies what I felt was anecdotally true anyways. What I believe beyond this is that the conclusions drawn about teens and their connection to their religions holds true for their parents as well - that religious belief and faith may be strong, but it's pretty vague and doesn't really mean much in everyday life. It's the communities surrounding the religions that really matter in everyday life.

Before I go on, let me just ask you up front. I want to hear your thoughts on this. It's not something I talk to friends about on a daily basis, but it's something that I hold pretty strong opinions on. Maybe that's why I don't talk about it...I don't want to get into disagreements :)

Anyways, I think this is even more true for desi youth. I haven't done any survey or study to tell me this, I'm basing this on generalities. It's based on the people I know and have known since high school. For the most part, I think most desi youth are nominally religious. There are variations in this. For example, I've known Swaminarayan, and Jain peeps who are much more involved with their temples than other "generic Hindu" peeps. By "generic Hindu" I'm referring to the various sects out there that pray to all forms of Hindu Gods including, but not limited to, Krishna, Shiva, Ganesh, Mataji, etc, etc. FWIW, I'm a "generic Hindu" :) (so you can fully expect that I'm about to denigrate my generic peoples)

So here's my breakdown:
The "generic Hindu" peeps go to temple only because their parents want them to. They're not necessarily forced to go, but they go to please their parents. Plus, it's a congregation point to meet some of their friends. Some may get very involved, but that's the exception rather than the norm. And the involvement tends to be more for reasons of community rather than religion. What I mean is that they get really involved not because they want to enhance their spirituality and get closer to God, but because they see a need in the Hindu community or they see their place in the community. This involvement usually means active organization of events and ceremonies. (And if you're a "generic Hindu" you also know that it involves a lot of in-fighting over who controls temple activities and money)

The Swaminarayan peeps I've known are much more involved in their community. To be honest, I don't know too many Swaminarayans, but the one's that I've known have been quite involved with events at the temple and most importantly, with community service activities being lead by the temple. I haven't actually seen much spritual involvement, so in that sense, it's somewhat similar to the "generic Hindus". But there's a much greater sense of community involvement. I'd say the involvement is the norm rather than the exception.

I've known a few Jains in my life and, for the most part, I've seen a lot of religious, spiritual, and community involvement. By religious, I mean they're engaged with the rites of the religion. By spritual, I mean they're actively looking for the connection between themselves and what it means to be Jain. They're looking for the inner meaning in life via Jain teachings. The community portion is similar to that of Swaminarayans in that they're very engaged in activities with others, especially in relation to Jain Center activities. The norm here seems to be real engagement with their religion at both physical and spiritual levels.

The commonality here, however, is the community invovlement. There are varying levels of religious and spiritual connection, but it's really the community that seems to tie people to their temples. It's not belief in God. And reading into the MSNBC report, that seems to be the case with the Christian and Jewish youth who were surveyed. The kids surveyed have a vague tie to their God, but it's pretty shallow and conceptual. Like I mentioned before, this really doesn't surprise me.

My fundamental belief is that religion was created to tie a community together. I don't believe religion just appeared out of thin air to help people find God. The spiritual action of finding God and understanding ones place in the world seems to me to be a very personal thing. It's not something I do with others. Even if I'm in a room full of worshippers, my prayers are personal and the person next to me doesn't help me find God.

That being said, I think all religions (meaning the codified and ritualized activities) are about the community. People are born into communities and thereby inherit many of the things associated with that community. Religion is one of them. People may truly believe that their God is the right and only god, but c'mon, if they had been born into a different community, their beliefs about God would be totally different. And the reason they believe in that God is because it's a part of their community. I fully know that if my parents were white, Roman Catholics, I'd be a Roman Catholic too.

Let's put it another way: I do believe there's a God. God has been around long before Man existed. But the forms of God and religion that we imagine are created by Man. So in that sense, all of the things we consider divine are just Man's creations. I really don't think we could imagine what God looks like or what God had in store for us at the beginning of time (and no, I don't believe in Creationism). The rituals and codes we've created to connect ourselves with God are really there to tie us together at some level to our communities. It gives us something fundamental and a commonality that's with us our entire lives.

Okay, so I've rambled on way too long and I don't even think this post makes 75% sense. Rather than delete it, give me your thoughts. I may seem a religious sceptic, but that's only because I am. How sceptical are you??

BollyCat

Since so many of my readers (count 'em, 6!) watch Bollywood films, I thought this would be a good site to have at hand after watching a Bollywood film and thinking "Damn, wasn't that a Hollywood movie like 3 years ago??"

Well, now you can look it up or submit your own:
Bollycat.com (via Apul at Sepia Mutiny)

If you just want to jump into the list of plagarized movies, use this link: View All Victims

On another note, I must say they've done a good job at the layout on this site. Good graphics and incorporation of different navigational elements in angled layouts. (Have I told you I'm a geek, yet?)

UPDATE: This site seems to be really popular and is not always available. If you can't get to it, don't blame me!

If you can't beat 'em, intimidate 'em

Political games are nothing new so I'm not trying to imply that we're now seeing something never seen on the face of this earth...

But c'mon, is there any way to see this except as an attempt to intimidate critics of Bush Admin and GOP policies.

LA Times article: Opponents of 'Clear Skies' Bill Examined

What really gets me about these types of actions is the utter lack of honesty in the debate. Whether it's Clear Skies, Iraq, and whatever, it seems like any legit criticism is first subject to beat down, investigation, and intimidation. If you don't agree, you damn well better be ready to have your entire life investigated because you obviously must have done something horrible in your past to ever believe in something different from the Admin or GOP. Once the beat down is accomplished, there's no reason to have a debate since the critics are either in jail, have been falsely accused of treason, or some other nonsense. The critics are forced to defend their character rather than allowed to state legitimate concerns or opposing viewpoints.

Tha Nazzarator

I'm sure you've already seen this, but here it is all g-ed up fo tha homies:

The Nazzarator