If you were looking for material to highlight the absurdity of Jeremy Lin's emergence as the new darling of the NBA, you would have a lot to work with.

Lin went to perennial hoops pushover Harvard. His surname offers limitless combinations for those who favor puns. He was crashing on...

"I thought about the wild circumstance we born out/Remember myself at your age, when I was just like you/If that was now, I don't know what I would do."

- Yasiin Bey, "Little Brother."

The return to polite society probably doesn't start with HATE...

All I want for Christmas is to never hear about Michelle Obama's ass again. Unless it's at my barbershop.

Now come, ye faithful readers. Gather round. Let's read together by the kinara:

1. The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has Seoul and Washington

Surely you've been introduced to Gene Marks, the new - and unnervingly smug - face of black adolescent poverty in West Philadelphia? It's a face that has launched thousands of snarky and serious and thoughtful and uninspired responses.

But few have been better than this...

It's not a stretch to say that The Roots has earned and received PostBourgie's highly coveted endorsement, an honor reserved for luminaries such as Ira Glass, Dikembe Mutombo, Wyatt Cenac and Tracey Heggins.

But if Questlove really thought it would've been a good idea to play Thomas Dolby's...

I'm looking for some extra tickets to the "black achievers conference" in Kentucky. Should I be looking for them at thecainsolutions.com?

By the way, don't tell my wife I asked about this.

Let's read together:

1. In honor of Cornbread's closing -- and clumsy, to be...

There's not much to say that qualifies as revelatory or interesting about the previous week, whether we're talking about Joe Paterno, Herman Cain or Rick Perry. The only observation we -- I, J.D. Bell -- might make is that human beings are usually much better in theory than they are...

Before you start digging through the links, something to ponder: can only prominent black conservatives be the victims of high-tech lynchings?

Could, say, MC Eiht be one too?

Anyhow, it's been awhile and there's a lot to read, so here ya go:

1. Matt Taibbi cuts through to...

Won't you accept this semi-hearty offering of randomness as an apology for staying away for so long? We shouldn't have left you:

Gawker calls for a "full accounting" of Steve Jobs' reputation, pointing out the "Bad Steve" split in his personality.

Beyond Rick Perry's infamous West Texas...

Welcome back for another installment of randomness. Feel free to offer your own reading suggestions in the comments:

Enjoy!

Colorlines examines how the Troy Davis execution made the abolition of the death penalty a deeply personal cause.

California and Bust: Vanity Fair's Michael Lewis surveys the...

If you like reading and the Internet and weekends, then wow, do we have a treat in store for you.

Over at our old Wordpress digs, we regularly posted a roundup of interesting news items on Monday -- usually Tuesday, sometimes Wednesday -- so our readers could distract themselves during...

It's difficult to enter the U.S. legal system, particularly in the South, and start counting on hope to bail you out of trouble.

To say nothing of justice.

If you're foolhardy or unfortunate enough to find yourself at the mercy of the state, so much of your fate depends on...

Because life is cruel and not often fair, Troy Davis appears destined for a state-sanctioned death tonight at the Georgia state prison about 50 miles south of Atlanta.

His execution will likely happen over the protests of former President Jimmy Carter -- one of Georgia's most revered natives; Pope...