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There’s been a lot of outcry over the “Shit ___ Say” franchise. Call me crazy, but I actually think these videos are great for gender and race relations and people in general.

The whole gag started with the “Shit Girls Say” series (Episode 1 is above), which has since spawned all kinds of offshoots — “Shit Guys Say,” Shit Asian Girls Say, “Shit Black Girls Say,” “Shit Gay Guys Say,” “Shit Girls Say to Lesbians,” “Shit White Girls Say To Black Girls,” “Shit Drunk Girls Say,” “Shit Southern Gay Guys Say,” “Shit Vegans Say,” and on and on and on.

Yes, the videos are over-the-top and stereotypical, but I don’t actually think they’re mean-spirited. We like these videos because we see ourselves in them, and because they give us an opportunity to laugh together at our own silliness. Humans are tribal. We self-identify into all sorts of tribes by age, by gender, by sexual orientation, by job and by any number of other attributes. And, we all say and do dumb things that may be perceived as socially acceptable dumb things, based on our various identities. I think the “Shit ___ Say” videos give us a chance to examine our own stereotypical words and actions and appreciate the absurdity in them.

I don’t think of myself as a stereotypical girl, but when I rewatched the “Shit Girls Say” videos today, it reminded me not to be so hard on myself about my body. It also reminded me that I talk over people sometimes, and that I really do ask people to do a lot of little tasks for me. As so many strive for uniqueness above all else, it’s nice to laugh at our commonalities for a change, even if those commonalities are our silly stereotypical behaviors.

Three major design fails, IMHO:
Art deco influence: The typography of the big M attempts to capture art deco style, but misses it entirely, because the mish-mash of color distracts from the geometry.

Color choice: They’re trying to introduce a more vibrant palette, while maintaining the old teal and black. They incorporate orange, which is an easy pick because so many other Miami teams use it, but they also add yellow, which makes this feel more like Albuquerque than Miami. Besides, does anyone remember how well the Houston Astros’ rainbow scheme turned out?

Minimalism: The Marlin swoosh is an attempt at minimalist design, but it’s undercut by the raucous color choice and the decidedly ornate M.

(Via Miami Herald Fish Bytes)

(WWFF11, Mike Rice)

The students were smart, driven, funny and dedicated. They cranked out some amazing work, which you should check out at spjwillwriteforfood.wordpress.com.

Every time I start losing my grip on why this journalism stuff matters, I’m thrown into a situation that rekindles my passion. WWFF11 was the latest catalyst. I am incredibly grateful to have worked with so many talented young journalists, and I know that they’re going to light this business up when they get the reins.

(Flickr/Chiceaux)

College football has broken a lot of hearts this offseason. Ohio State, Oregon, Boise State, Miami and now LSU fans have endured a round shellacking in the public eye because of the idiotic decisions of players, coaches and boosters. As an LSU fan, I’m deeply disappointed in our players and coaches. We’re all reeling over this stupid bar brawl that has likely ended a promising season before it began.

When people ask me about what sports I follow, I always say that I am a college football fan, and specifically an LSU fan above all else. The NFL is undoubtedly the pinnacle of football skill and execution, but, to me, the tradition, pageantry, allegiances and the raw emotion in the college game far surpass anything the pros can offer. The college game gives us hundred-year-old rivalries, miracle upsets and “Rudy” stories that cannot exist in the NFL.

College football matters so much to so many. I grew up in Alabama, where children learn to be an Auburn or Alabama fan before they fully develop consciousness. My nephew, Josiah, has an Auburn-themed nursery. He “watched” every Auburn game as an infant last year, and my brother dutifully recorded the scores of the team’s miraculous undefeated season on a souvenir poster in blue Sharpie for Josiah to keep into adulthood. This child knew to bounce in time to”War Eagle” before he could crawl.

I came to LSU later in my life, but when I walked on to the campus for a visit in my junior year of high school, I couldn’t imagine going to college anywhere else. I got a great education there. I was in the Honors College, where I read great books and grew fascinated with history and the classics. My journalism professors pushed me to tell stories well across different media and to examine my role in the community. I marched in the band, and just thinking about playing pregame to a packed Tiger Stadium still gives me chills. I wrote for The Reveille, the campus paper, at a time when a serial killer preyed on our classmates. I made my closest friends at LSU. I fell in love for the first time, and I came out of the closet. I became an adult beneath those oaks and arches.

College football allegiances are ingrained deeply, and that’s what gives the game the power to break hearts deeply. College is also transitory. It’s a launchpad for caree, and a place for young people to work hard and grow into productive adults. Often that means making mistakes, sometimes significant ones. We don’t want to believe that people could be so careless with our school’s name and reputation, but it’s understandable that a 20-year-old would be negligent. The real heartbreak stems from the boosters and coaches, who should be looking out for the best interests of the athletes and the school. It’s disheartening to know that all these broken hearts stem from adults who

I started reading the series in college, I guess around 2000, about two years after Potter-mania gripped the rest of the world. I was skeptical at first, but like most everyone else, I lost myself in Hogwarts with Harry, Hermoine and Ron. I loved the series for its adventure, its clever allusions to myth and literature and mostly, its emphasis on the power of friendship, love and faith in oneself. I loved it so much that named my first dog, a sweet black pound hound, Potter.

When I discovered Harry and the Gryffindor gang, I was in my first serious relationship and still closeted in the Deep South. I was alienated from my family, mostly out of my own fear. I was terrified that the people I loved most wouldn’t accept me. But I had an amazing group of friends who loved me, stuck by me and pulled me through when I was too weak to do it myself. I came out to my family shortly after I started reading the series. I realized, like Harry did so many times, that fear is far nastier stuff than actual adversity. It took time and talking and healing, but I have a fantastic relationship with my family now.

In 2003, after Order of the Phoenix was released, my father died suddenly. Our relationship had been strained and sporadic during college. I didn’t visit or call. Neither did he. I never really understood how sick he was, and then he was gone.

After his funeral, I turned, as I often do in times of stress or heartbreak, to books.  I was so awash in guilt and grief at this point that I couldn’t think. All I could do was read. I read classics and bestsellers. I read graphic novels and historical sagas. I read books from my childhood, and I re-read the Harry Potter series. I read everything I could find. I needed so many stories to keep my mind off my own, and I needed Potters, both Harry and hairy, see me through my sorrow.

I healed, of course. Enough anyway, to  get a job, move, live. But, Harry, Hermoine, Ron, Dumbledore, Snape and the Order were always with me, whether in  books or the theater, throughout my 20s. As I launched a career, started and ended relationships and came to terms with who I was as an adult, our teen wizards competed at school, started snogging and battled Lord Voldemort to his eventual doom.

I grieve a little when good stories end. The final blow of the Harry Potter series struck me harder than most. So much of my growth into adulthood was intertwined with the series, that it’s hard to let it go. Sunday, I video-chatted with my parents and my one-year-old nephew. We talked about the movie, and I tried to coax Josiah to say “Harry.” I realized how eager I am to share the wizard world with him. I hope he’ll grow up with Harry too, albeit a bit more age-appropriately. That connection across time and space and souls is the power of a good story. I’ll miss Harry and Hogwarts, but I can’t wait for the next great tale to come along.

Certainly this conversation was politically slanted, as was the show. But what I find interesting here is that actual people were politically engaging with fictional characters about politics in real-time. Some of the @Pres_Bartlet tweets were amplified thousands of times, far more than those from elected officials or reporters.

What does it mean when we choose to engage with fictional politicians about reality rather than actual ones? Certainly fictional identity allows more latitude to tweet freely about one’s opinions, and with no actual constituents, fake politicians are able to fulfill the desires of a perhaps underrepresented — and frustrated  — liberal audience.

I just find it fascinating that we live in an age when we CAN engage with fiction so fluidly and in real-time. It opens up entirely new possibilities for narrative.

(Flickr, sskennel)

I’m back. I won’t make any excuses for my absence, but I do have an explanation. I have willfully ignored this little corner of the web for months as I adjusted to becoming a reporter again.

In December, I accepted a job covering Boca Raton and unincorporated Palm Beach County west of the city for the Sun Sentinel. The time since has been a crazy adjustment period in which I hustled to learn the territory, connect with sources, hone my writing and relearn all the style minutiae I forgot after college. It’s been an obviously stressful period, filled with daily plunges into self-doubt and glimmers of success, but it’s also been the most fun I’ve had in my journalism career.

I was a reporter and columnist at my college paper, but I chose design when it came time to get a job. I was a solid designer, and I enjoyed the work. I believed then, as I do now, that presentation can make or break a reader’s understanding of a story. But at least a sliver of the job’s appeal was its anonymity. Designers don’t get bylines, nor angry calls from readers and sources.

Reporting is personal. Every day you ask people to trust you with their stories, their ideas, their passions, their trials. At the end of the day, you sift through those, taking bits of each and brewing them into a few hundred words that’s supposed to encapsulate an issue. Usually, the result is a coherent catalog of point and counterpoint. Occasionally, it’s magic — corruption is uncovered, darkness is illuminated, humanity shines through the cacophony.

That magic is the only reason anyone does this job, I think. Gathering and distilling the news is endless, exhausting work that requires a constant balance between connecting with people and maintaining critical distance from them. Movies, novels and TV glamorize the thrill of the chase, the adrenaline spike, of reporting, but it’s an unsustainable and ultimately unfulfilling high. No matter how fast I’m speeding along with the story, my gaze must trend toward the horizon to stay on course.

“The media” are reviled by citizens and politicians alike, but most journalists do this work because we care deeply about our communities, our government and our society. We adhere to stringent ethical standards, and we are guided by the idea that the freedoms we are granted are a public trust. We stake our effort on the idea that fair, accurate reporting and analysis helps people make better choices. I’m happy now to stake my name on that idea too.

Now that I am on my feet as a reporter, I plan to begin updating this blog regularly again. I set up some new pages to feature some of my writing and multimedia work in the portfolio section, too, if you want to check it out.

The Alabama capitol, which sits at the East end of Dexter Avenue. (Flickr, sunsurfr)

At the East end of Dexter Avenue atop Goat Hill, sits the Alabama State Capitol where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the president of the Confederacy and where George Wallace declared “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

At the west end is the Court Square fountain, where Hebe, goddess of youth and cupbearer to the Gods marks the spot where Montgomery was born from the merging of two rival pioneer communities — Alabama Town and New Philadelphia.

Smack in the middle is Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King, Jr. first preached of love and peaceful protest, and where the black people of Montgomery, Alabama planned a boycott that launched a revolution.

I grew up going to the church across the street, long after the flames of segregation were first dampened with defiance and eventually smothered out with law.

The Montgomery of my childhood was a vastly different city than it was for my mother or my grandmother.

I’ve never known a time without classmates, teammates and friends of different races. I can’t imagine a time when people could openly abuse others based on their skin color.

I am from a generation of Southerners who grew up in the ashes of segregation. And, it may surprise people who aren’t from the South to know how fertile that ground is.

Among my peers, I see smart, ambitious people of all races working toward goals their parents could hardly imagine.

They are first-generation college graduates. They work in high-tech industries. They travel all over the world, serving in the military and working for global businesses.

They are striving to make wise long-term decisions with their money, their time and their spirits. And, they are raising their children to reject racism and bigotry.

So, while Martin Luther King, Jr.’s great dream remains yet unrealized, I believe we are inching ever closer to it. And, I am proud to have grown up in the birthplace of that dream.

Casteller from Mike Randolph on Vimeo.

Homepage image: Flickr, MorBCN