Educate and excite, inform and infuriate.

Videogames are getting more and more life-like. In this Japanese TV ad, below, for the upcoming Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, out here September 29th for the Playstation 3, gamers get a look at one character’s stunning new moves.

[via crazysexytechiecool.blogspot.com]

Summer will be over within mere hours, ladies, but that’s still enough time to tell ’em whose really runnin’ things in the White House. Brandishing an ecstatic portrait of First Lady Michelle Obama, and the caption, “The Hottest Chick in the Game,” this American Apparel Slim Fit tee is constructed from pure cotton and held together by a durable rib neckband. In sizes S, M, and L. Fittingly available in black, only. Bossip “Hottest Chick in the Game” T-shirt, $24.95.

Dr. Leonard Susskind is widely regarded as one of the fathers of string theory. The field’s objectives consist of nothing less than a re-ordering of the universe, and a mapping of its very structure, far, far past the atomic level. In his book, The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, Dr. Susskind illuminates the challenges of his research, the discoveries, and the work still to be done.

Dr. Susskind is the guest today on this previously broadcasted edition of my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, September 18, at 2 pm ET. You can hear his ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, dig into our archives for up to 90 days after broadcast.

Dear The Domestic Terrorist:

Greetings. Thanks for linking to and quoting my post, “‘Is Kanye the New O.J. ?'”, from my blog, Media Assassin, in your post about Kanye West and Taylor Swift, “Much Ado About Kanye.” I enjoyed your writing.

In your piece, however, I couldn’t help but notice the following excerpt:

Where Mr. Allen lost me (well, he never really had me but I was going in with an open mind since I highly respect the person who referred me to his article), was when he spewed forth this nonsense:

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Robert Bechtle’s 1974, 48 in. by 69 in. oil, Alameda Gran Torino, is a masterpiece of the photorealistic style he mastered in the 1960s and ’70s.

In his 2005 review of the artist’s work, The New Yorker‘s Peter Schjeldahl called Bechtle’s images visions “from a prior life,” and Alameda Gran Torino, paradoxically, “a nova of banality.”

The station wagon can’t help but be only and exactly what Detroit fashioned. Hot sunlight can’t help but glint from a bumper and produce a faint reflection of the windshield on a garage door. A closeness between the green of the car and that of a background shadow is unusual, but so perfectly meaningless that your mind may panic at the waste of its energy in beholding the fact. Then something peculiar can happen: your reflexive sense of the picture as a photograph breaks down, and the object’s identity as a painting, done entirely on purpose, gains ground. Look closely. A congeries of tiny freehand strokes delivers an inconspicuous patch of foliage. The whole work is a feat of resourceful painterly artifice. At last, it’s as if the original photograph were a ghost that died and came back as a body.

And what a body it is.

The familiar, sky-blue font is there, but the usual, loud, hyperventilating, all-caps text is not.

Instead, last night on his blog, Kanye West gave the apology that, perhaps, fans and foes had wanted to hear all along.

Comparing himself to Gaylord “Greg” Focker, the luckless character played by Ben Stiller in the 2000 film, Meet the Parents, West admitted that, with his bum rush of the MTV Video Awards on Sunday, he’d “messed up everything.”

That was Taylor’s moment and I had no right in any way to take it from her. I am truly sorry.

Elegant and terse, where his original, much-derided “apology” was mouthy and glib, the remorseful statement may go a long way toward repairing West’s shattered image, particularly when coupled to his earlier, highly emotional appearance on the debut episode of The Jay Leno Show that same evening.

The same probably isn’t true, however, for the Twitterers who salted the artist with racist invective in the wake of his outburst. Perhaps the best we can hope for, in their case, is to never hear from their ilk again.

Not betting on it.

Will hip-hop vocalist / producer Kanye West, as one blogger has insightfully observed, become the next African-American male to live his public existence as a symbol of the race divide’s vitriol? Will he become a scapegoat for white obsessions over the threat Blackness purportedly represents?

The virtual flood of racist, expletive-laden tweets that followed the artist’s brief rant at last night’s MTV Video Music Awards suggest a strong “Yes.”

As many know, West interrupted singer Taylor Swift during her “Best Female Video” honor and acceptance speech, taking the mic to tell her, and all watching, that, “Taylor, I’m really happy for you, I’m gonna let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all-time. One of the best videos of all-time!”, referring to Knowles “Single Ladies,” which had also been nominated.

West’s rude and abortive outburst drew loud, droning catcalls from the audience, while an embarrassed and stunned Swift stood, shocked and still, before being escorted gently from the stage.

As stated on MTV’s web site,

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[via digg.com]

Excellent NY Times pic by photog Christopher Polk, above top, documents Kanye West’s September 13, 2009 bogart of MTV’s Video Music Awards 2009 stage. The act led to his web site apology, above, that same night, but not before he was ejected from Radio City Music Hall.

Best part: Taylor Swift’s “Huh?” expression, and the fact that the hostess in the back doesn’t even know what’s happening yet, either.