Educate and excite, inform and infuriate.

Exline Park by R. C. Hickman (1955)
From the R. C. Hickman Photographic Archive at the
Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin

I’m giving you really short notice, as this show will only be up until Sunday, March 8. But if you’re anywhere near the Irving Arts Center (3333 N. MacArthur Blvd) in Irving TX between now and then, make it your business to stop by and see Behold the People: R.C. Hickman’s Photographs of Black Dallas, which features 56 black and white photographs from his eponymous archive at the University of Texas at Austin.

For those who, like I, had never heard of the man,

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A really amazing design, at first sight, should almost make your eyes water.

Oculus, above, is a great design.

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I really don’t know when it dawned on me, for the very first time, that auto manufacturers created certain cars with Negroes firmly in mind.

I can definitely tell you when I last had that thought, however: Wednesday, about 4:45 pm. That was shortly after I opened mentor Ray Winbush‘s e-mail, containing a sole line—”I want one of these…”—and a link to Conquest Vehicles web site. There, the Toronto-based firm was more than happy to tell a body everything they would possibly want to know about the marque’s $310,000-base priced, fully-armored Hummer humiliator, the Knight XV, above.

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Juliona Trans is her name, robbing banks of moneybags bigger than her torso is her game. As the copy for the 8 2/3-inch figure, above, notes, she’s

based on an illustration drawn by popular artist Masamune Shirow in his poster book Wild Wet West [right] … Every fine detail from the original illustration has been beautifully sculpted into the figure – from her proportions, her facial expression and her radiant skin to her fingertips that seem ready to fire her gun at any moment. As an additional extra, a special card of the original illustration is included.

She sells for about $80 in Japan, and can be ordered from the manufacturer, Art Storm / Lilics, via their web site, if you read Japanese.

Liquid Generation vomits up their Garbage Pail Kids parody, Garbage Fail Kids, above, with a riff on chanteuse Rihanna’s alleged assault by R&B singer Chris Brown. (Note the carved text, “CB WUZ HERE,” in her right shoulder, not to mention numerous bite marks, including a chomp through her skull.) Go ahead. Laught it up.

In a move aimed “to show the hidden beauties of Afghan youth,” Afghan entrepreneurs are creating a TV show for the country that’s been likened to Tyra Banks’ America’s Next Top Model, here in the U.S.

Afghan Model will be produced by Emrooz TV, a new channel in that country, privately owned by parliament member Najib Kabuli. As reported by Reuters,

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Like the much-rumored Inuit propensity for creating “snow” synonyms, Connecting Dotz‘s line of “In a Word” cards utilizes the nuances imbued in twenty-four foreign nouns and exclamations to convey subtleties within the human condition.

Of the host—”Uffda!” “Istikhara,” “Koi No Yokan,” “Skookum Tumtum”—perhaps my favorite is mamihlapinatapai, above (ma-MI-luh-PEE-na-TAH-pie), from the endangered South American language, Yaghan: “A meaningful look between two people, expressing mutual unstated feelings; literally means ‘ending up mutually at a loss as to what to do about each other.'” Any six cards, $30; twelve, $49.95.

One year ago today, we published our very first post on MEDIA ASSASSIN.

Today, 528 later, I just want to warmly and richly thank all of you—whether you’ve read, subscribed to, commented on, blogrolled, linked to, trackbacked, forwarded, retweeted, or otherwise supported MEDIA ASSASSIN—for being part of this singular, amazing experience. We could not have done it without you.

As these photos, above, demonstrate, Mexican beauty contest winner Laura Elena Zuniga Huizar, 23, doesn’t flash her terawatt smile in all of her pictures. That’s Zuniga, atop, beaming broadly, after taking home the crown at the Nuestra Belleza Sinaloa (“Our Sinaloa Beauty”) 2008 contest in July.

But that’s also Zuniga, directly above, moments after her December arrest, in what the Associated Press called a “gun-filled truck,” one of two rolling in lockstep, weighted down with “a large stash of weapons, including two AR-15 assault rifles, 38 specials, 9mm handguns, nine magazines, 633 cartridges and $53,300 in U.S. currency.” (Seven alleged gunmen were also captured in the sting.)

Zuniga told police that she was planning on traveling to Bolivia and Colombia with the men to go shopping, [Jalisco state police director, Francisco Alejandro] Solorio said.

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If you thought Barack Obama had a tough-looking jawline before, sculptor Jean Dukens Boivert’s 22 x 17 in. framed portrait of the President should practically intimidate you back to your barstool. The image, according to gallerist Marcel Wah,

is made out of metal from recycled oil drums. It is coated with a primer, painted with acrylic or oil paint, then varnished for protection.

In other words, you cannot outlast this. It’s one in a limited edition of 150, and priced $475-$675, depending on what number you get in the series. Allow 2-3 weeks for delivery directly from Haiti.