From the BBC:

The ban reflects a growing unease about using the "N-word"

The city council of New York has voted to ban the use of the word "nigger".

The resolution to ban the so-called "N-word" is largely symbolic as it carries no weight in law and those who use the word would face no punishment.

But it reflects a growing unease that the racial slur is now part of everyday conversation and that the taboo against its usage has been swept away.

The word is in common usage among sections of the younger generation in the United States. ... for America's so-called hip-hop generation using the word among themselves is about self-empowerment.

Its usage is habitual and seems culturally fixed and to stop it is likely to take a change in their attitudes rather than an edict from elected officials.

Addendum

The Beeb followed up on the news story with a feature.

From the BBC:

Thirty-four monks officiated at Osaka's Kyocera Dome

The late inventor of instant noodles was symbolically blasted off into space at a funeral ceremony attended by thousands in Osaka, western Japan.

The event was a tribute to Momofuku Ando's creation of Space Ram, a noodle soup that works at zero gravity.

Mr Ando, who died in January aged 96, created the instant noodle in 1958 and worked hard on the vacuum pack that was taken into space in 2005.

His Nissin Food Products has annual sales of 300bn yen ($2.5bn).

Tuesday's ceremony attracted 6,500 people to Osaka's Kyocera Dome baseball stadium. Thirty-four monks officiated and stars adorned the walls.

A previous post on Mr. Ando's passing.

From the NYT:

Johnna Cottam was showing a group of her girlfriends how to do a move called the Fireman.

As music by Shakira played, she strode up to grab the portable pole in the living room of her well-appointed lakefront home here, wrapped her right leg around it, swung wide with her left, and spun. When she reached the bottom, Ms. Cottam, in a pink “Got Pole?” tank top and black workout pants, tossed her hair back, mudflap-girl style.

“Kick it right out of the ballpark, just kick it,” she encouraged her five friends and neighbors. Making way for the women to try the move, Ms. Cottam backed into a rocking chair draped with pink and purple feather boas that partly covered her twin sons’ two teddy bears.

Pole dancing, once exclusively the province of exotic dancers, has flared up as a much-hyped Hollywood exercise craze, and has seeped into the collective unconscious through shows like “The Sopranos” and “Desperate Housewives.” A variant called motorized pole dancing, which occurs in stretch limos, has raised eyebrows as far away as Britain, where some female university students pole-danced as a fund-raiser for testicular cancer. And mini-poles have even been spotted as dance props at over-the-top bat mitzvah parties in suburban precincts.

I was riding the Scarborough Rapid Transit line on Wednesday when two young women started talking about bachelorette parties.

One says she knew of one girl who had a midget stripper entertain at her "sweet 16" party, "and he even gave her a lap dance."

Says the other: "That's kind of funny."

Well, I certainly thought so! :)

Now, those who follow celebrity gossip much, much more closely than I do inform me that some professional party girls have themselves hired such entertainment for their own all-girl soirees.

Who knew?

Who cares?

This first started percolating after the Grammys, but now that the Oscars are almost here, I can offer the refined version.

In my vision, all the nominees for a category would go on stage, much like a beauty pageant.

However, when the winner was named, that person would not give a speech. Instead, they would go and sit on a throne, their back to the audience.

Then the losers (and face facts, that's what they are at this point) would have to go before them one by one. Then, while on bended knee, they would have to tell the winner that their performance/film/whatever was better, and then briefly explain why -- or better yet, why they sucked.

The winner would be encouraged to have a superior, triumphalist smirk on their faces.

After they were finished, the losers would have to submissively bow or curtsey to the winner, whichever is most appropriate.

The losers would go offstage as a group to the nastiest boos and catcalls imaginable. The winner would get rapturous cheers.

Hey, I'd watch that! :)

And according to this Globe and Mail story, the producers are trying to spice things up. An excerpt:

Faced with declining viewership (last year's show was the second-least-watched ceremony by Americans in more than a decade) — and previous Oscars that have clocked in at more than three hours — the academy this year is insisting that individual acceptance speeches be, above all, “interesting and memorable.”

If a winner “pulls out a list and starts to read it,” that's pretty much a guarantee that he or she is going to be cut off right away, an Oscar spokesperson said Wednesday.

Even without a list, the famous musical cut-off — when the orchestra drowns out a winner's speech — “still could happen,” she said, particularly if the speech is felt to be going on too long. Winners are being told they have 45 seconds to make their speeches.

From the NYT:

Two days after graduating from high school last June, Jonathan Pope left his home in Miamisburg, Ohio, to join a traveling magazine sales crew, thinking he would get to “talk to people, party at night and see the country.”

Over the next six months, he and about 20 other crew members crossed 10 states, peddling subscriptions door to door, 10 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. Sleeping three to a room in cheap motels, lowest seller on the floor, they survived some days on less than $10 in food money while their earnings were kept “on the books” for later payment.

By then, Mr. Pope said, he had seen several friends severely beaten by managers, he and several other crew members were regularly smoking methamphetamine with prostitutes living down the motel hallway, and there were warrants out for his arrest in five states for selling subscriptions without a permit.

“I knew I was either going to be dead, disappeared or I don’t know what,” Mr. Pope said.

From TheStar.com:

New Mexico is hoping to keep drunks off the road by lecturing them at the last place they usually stop before getting behind the wheel: the urinal.

The state recently paid $21 (U.S.) each for about 500 talking urinal-deodorizer cakes and put them in men's rooms in bars and restaurants.

When a man steps up, the motion-sensitive plastic device says, in a woman's voice that is flirty, then stern: "Hey, big guy. Having a few drinks? Think you had one too many? Then it's time to call a cab or call a sober friend for a ride home."

The recorded message ends: "Remember, your future is in your hand."

Question: How do you show your annoyance to a talking urinal puck?

The NYT tries to capture the vibe of modern-day Phnom Penh.