“Nothing changes unless there’s a body count,” according to A. Joseph Stack III. On Thursday (Feb. 18th), Stack, 53, posted a suicide note on the Internet, burned down his house in Austin, Texas, and then flew a Piper Cherokee PA-28 into an IRS office, killing both himself and IRS employee Vernon Hunter and wounding 13 others. More and more is being revealed about Stack’s life story, including his rage and hatred for the IRS, the federal government and the Catholic Church. In the six-page manifesto that he posted he rails against many entities, including the American justice and educational systems, claiming they create a false sense of security and financial entitlement.

Over the past several weeks we've all read hundreds of articles about how this Tiger has lost his stripes. Many speculate as to his egocentricity, infidelity, taste, athletic prowess, and, quite possibly, his stupidity. This morning Tiger said that "everyone... has good reason to be critical of me." Despite the above, and especially after this morning's apology, Tiger is in need of an encouraging word. Like sportswriter Joe Posnanski, I only wish I knew what it was.

In a candid conversation with Rob Tannenbaum of Playboy Magazine musician John Mayer said, “I think the world would be better off if I stopped doing interviews.” Mayer has proven himself right. In what can only be described as a serious error in judgment, Mayer addressed his preferences and prejudices regarding interracial sex. When asked, “do black women throw themselves at you?” Mayer responded with the following: “I don’t think I open myself to it. My dick is sort of like a white supremacist. I’ve got a Benetton heart and a fuckin’ David Duke cock. I’m going to start dating separately from my dick.” So John Mayer doesn't have "jungle fever." What's the big deal?

Last Thursday night former Congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo made opening-night remarks at the inaugural National Tea Party Convention in Nashville. Tancredo fired verbal shots at Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” stating that people who “could not spell the word vote or say it in English” had elected the president. And that Obama’s election reveals the need for us to “have a civics [or] literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

While MSNBC host Chris Matthews had a hard time remembering that President Obama was black after “The State of the Union” address, Urban Outfitters is having no trouble at all. In a recent online catalog for the retailer the short-sleeved, buttoned BDG Burnout Henley t-shirt was made available to consumers in, among a rainbow of colors, "Obama/Black." According to The Huffington Post, the creative naming was short lived. The shirt was made unavailable as of last Monday morning (Feb 1st). While the chain has sold Obama-themed t-shirts in the past, this is the first time "Obama" has been used as a color description.

The second decade of the 21st century has ushered in changes in technology, economics, politics, culture and narratives of identification. From the advent of social media, to the Great Recession, to health care reform, to the revised racial categories on the U.S. Census, American lives are faced with increasing tensions and ambiguities. No single icon reflects these tensions and ambiguities, and the paradigm shifts they are inspiring, more cohesively than President Barack Hussein Obama.

Many argue that Obama’s election to the Presidency and status as global “supercelebrity” are signs that we have entered a post-racial moment in which everyone and everything is mixed. Among these is Chris Matthews of MSNBC. Matthews, in a very different take on Obama’s public image than Senator Reid, said Wednesday that “I forgot he [Obama] was black.” Not so fast, Chris Matthews. How could someone forget this important aspect of our President’s racial identity? What does this statement mean?

I think one of today's most underrated actors is Wentworth Miller. I've been following his career since his performance in The Human Stain a few years back. His work in this film made some important connections between particular mixed race, Jewish and African American responses to American demands of assimilation.

New Yorkers, beware. It seems that former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr., a transplant from Tennessee, has upset people again. Ford, an executive at Merrill Lynch and New York University lecturer who might be seeking to unseat fellow Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand of New York in a race for the U.S. Senate, has made a very bold statement about his identity. In 2006, Ford claimed that despite official government documentation, family records and testimony to the contrary, his grandmother, Vera Ford, was not black. Rather, she was a white woman passing as black. According to the website The Black Commentator, Ford’s declaration has resurfaced recently and is not only fraudulent but insulting: “There seem to be no limits to the young congressman's perfidy and stupidity. In the process of depicting his own ancestors as people living a lie, Ford has also insulted the Black public and Black history -- not to mention common sense, a quality of which Harold Jr. seems to be totally lacking.” Even though Ford’s father says that Vera was white, the website says he is a liar because other relatives, including Ford’s aunt Barbara, maintain that Vera was black. The larger concern seems to be that if Ford would revise his grandmother's identity for political gain, there might be other and more far-reaching issues about which Ford feels he has the right and obligation to control or reframe for expediency, such as his record on issues like gun control, abortion or same sex marriage. Can Ford be trusted?

A friendly reader recently posted a comment to my Avatar blog about the depression that has overtaken many viewers. Stricken by the “Avatar blues,” people are realizing that the ideal presented about life on Pandora is unattainable. Well, I have two things to say about this: (1) the images presented in Avatar were neither revolutionary nor ideal when you dig beneath their beautiful surfaces. And, (2) if there’s something to be depressed about it should be the recent natural disaster in Haiti. According to Rene Preval, the now homeless Haitian President, it is estimated that the devastating quake took over 50,000 lives and injured 250,000. "We need medicine. We need medical help in general," Preval told CNN. "Some of the hospitals, they collapsed." Nearly 3 million people are estimated to have been affected so far. Unreal…