Via The Village Voice:

When I wake up, I like to start the day off with a hot bowl full of scrumptious, and nutritious, dicks. Yum.

One of the most historic quotes in American history, coined by none other than Fergie, I assume. [Ed. note: Horace Greeley made it popular, but who cares] Rhyme&Reason has been unusually quiet of late, but it has been with good reason. The CEO, COO, CFO, President of sales and marketing, editor, art director, writer and intern are all moving to California.

Yes, all of those people are in fact the same person. I like titles, ok? They’re good for self-esteem, I saw it on Oprah.

Rhyme&Reason has only been in existence for a short while, so while I don’t really know what this Web site is yet, I know what it’s not. And in this place, which is apparently some sort of series of tubes (thanks, Al), sometimes that’s more important anyway.Before I get into what R&R isn’t, we need a foundation of information to build upon. Life isn’t a game of Jenga, you play from the ground up on this little blue marble. I am moving to North Hollywood, CA, in search of answers to questions that have evaded me for me entire life.

Who would ever give George Lopez his own show?

When using the bathroom, how come we wash our hands after we touch our penises, not before? I’d rather give some stranger a horrible illness than my precious little guy.

Who drinks Rock Star energy drink?

Why are the street signs in LA blue? (Seriously, I am going to write my alderman and ask him this question)

I’ve lived in/near Chicago pretty much my entire adult existence, so this move is fairly significant on the list of major life events. I’d put if somewhere above the Bears losing the Super Bowl, and below my first trip to 2nd base (I’ll never forget you, whoever you are)

But if Rhyme&Reason has anything, it is a semblance of journalism integrity. I will want to share my experiences with all of you, but this is not a diary or a dream journal. You are not my TalkGirl, and I will not share my hopes and dreams and loves and losses with a bunch of weirdos on the internet who have nothing better to do but browse this sorry excuse for a Web site. That is not Rhyme&Reason is for. That’s what your blog is for.

But that doesn’t mean some of the things I do aren’t newsworthy, informative, helpful, etc., and when that happens I’m going to try and inform the masses as I always do. So bear with me through these lean times and you might learn a thing or two along the way. No promises though, you seem pretty slow to begin with.

Allow me to quote myself. On December 31st, in the year of Our Lord 2009, I wrote the following when discussing society’s New Year’s Resolutions:

Food Industry: End the use of ketchup packets. It’s stupid, it’s pointless, and it bothers the shit out of me. Every other condiment at most fast food places comes in a tub: Barbecue sauce, ranch dressing, honey mustard, yet when I get fries, I have to surgically open 62 ketchup packets to get an adequate amount to start dipping. GET SOME KETCHUP IN SOME TUBS. We’re not putting a man on Mars here, it’s a reasonable request. Get moving. I need my fries slathered in ketchup!

Well guess what, bitches?

POW! Look who is changing society one post at a time! New Year’s Resolutions are coming true, and it’s not even March.

Let’s read on:

The new ketchup pack, unveiled Thursday by H.J. Heinz Co., is shaped like a shallow cup. The top can be peeled back for dipping, or the end can be torn off for squeezing. It holds three times as much ketchup as a traditional packet.

Did you see that? Three times the ketchup! This must be what it feels like to survive a drought and feel then rain come down upon your dusty face.

Rejoice America, Rhyme&Reason has stood up to oppression, and oppression has tucked its tail betwixt its legs and run home, leaving behind only a puddle of urine and a trail of whimpers.

You’re welcome, America.

One of the best parts about hip-hop/rap/R&B/whatever-you-want-to-call-it is that somehow, someway, a bad song can actually be a good song. In a bizarre turnabout of what we usually believe, there is not only an economic demand but a cultural demand for shitty rap songs. When society is out grinding at the club, society doesn’t want to listen to the social-political musings of Common. Society wants to grind all up on you.

Enter T-Pain.

Is T-Pain a good musician? I don’t know. Is T-Pain contributing to the advancement of music? I can’t tell you. Will Barack Obama’s re-dedication to scientific research within NASA contribute to the advancements of robots, causing them to become self-aware and rise up against us? Maybe.

But I do know this: Society loves grinding to T-Pain. Combine that with Young Jeezy, and I don’t really care if the title of the song is indeed a sexual position lauded for bringing sensual pleasure to women everywhere. I know I’m going to enjoy listening to its simple idiocy. As a girl once said to me, “Its T-Pain-ness is off the charts.” Indeed it is. And you know what? Sometimes, that’s exactly what I want.

Because sometimes, like society, I just want to grind all up on you.

“Reverse Cowgirl” (feat. Young Jeezy) – T-Pain ★★★

Hello. Welcome back, it’s good to see you. Please, sit down, pour yourself a glass of wine. It’s a Merlot. 1997. Bold, complex.

Now let’s philosophize.

You know, almost all of the answers to the world’s great questions about love and relationships can be found with a few well-placed words in a Google search. It’s 2010, nobody is reinventing the wheel when it comes to the coupling of human beings. Whatever incredible thoughts and feelings you have on the subject have been thought an felt a BILLION times before. Trust me, there are no exceptions.

Except this one.

When new technology is implemented in relationships, technology that was not available to prior generations, we get the opportunity to discuss how it affects our everyday world. We get to declare truths and myths. We get to be all deep and stuff.

Since I am a well-rounded man of letters, one whose prose is as eloquent and beautiful as a the dew on a single rose amidst a billowing field on an island in the middle of the ocean during sunrise (or sunset), I thought that together — with me serving as your guide, obvi — we could journey into one of these new technologies and examine its pervasiveness in relationships.

The textual message.

Join me, as we unravel a mystery so shrouded in mystery that it would make Dan Brown rock-hard.

Your text/in person conversation ratio is important. Ah, the throes of young love. When two hearts beat at once, and the colors — the colors! — they are so bright, like your eyes have never seen such vivid reds and blues and golds and navy blues (in this scenario you’re at a Cubs-Brewers game, stay with me).

And you know what else comes with the throes of young love? The desire of being in constant contact with your lover. (Lover: What an awkward, clumsy word. Would you ever call your lover your lover in front of them? Would you ever call your lover your lover period? Just typing it makes me feel filthy, like I’m watching porn with my family. No thank you.)

Before now, it wasn’t that realistic for two young pups to be in constant contact. Everybody has shit they gotta do, you can’t spend every waking moment with another person. Not even if they are your conjoined twin. But now, do you know what texting has to say about that?

/Phone vibrates

//”1 message received: Fuck that shit.”

Fuck that shit, indeed, cell phone-that-can-think-for-itself-in-this-imaginary-scenario. Now couples can talk all the time! Morning, noon and night. Factor in stuff like E-mail, AIM, facebook, GChat, Skype and the four people in the world that use Jabber, and you’ve got constant contact.

BUT I WARN YOU, GOOD SIRS AND HERS. If your virtual contact grossly outweighs your actual contact, you’re doing yourself a disservice. People are not the same online/in texts as they are in real life. YOU’RE BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP ON A FOUNDATION AS WEAK AS A NEW ORLEANS LEVEE! (nailed it). Please, for the sake of the children, limit your texting/talking ratio to a respectable level. What’s that level you ask? Great question. I don’t know, so let’s move on.

If he texts you often, it’s not because he wants to be your BFF. If she texts you often, good luck solving that Rubix cube. Ladies, unless you are his mother, sister, female cousin (and this rule mostly applies north of the Mason Dixon line) or a girl who has set CLEAR non-sexual boundaries with him, know this: If he’s texting you often, he’s trying to get in there. All the way in there. Then out of there. Then in there again. Then out. In and out, in a rhythmic, sensual motion.

Gentlemen, unless she is your mother, sister, female cousin (again, same rules) or a girl who has set CLEAR non-sexual boundaries, know this: I have no idea why that girl is texting you non-stop. It could be because she wants to go halfsies on a baby; it could be because she simply can’t remember the name of that one guy in “CSI: New York” (it’s Gary Sinise). It could be anything. Literally, anything.

Avoid Fatal Attraction texting. You get one re-send, then lock it up. I know a man’s tiny brain can’t comprehend this, but when you disregard this rule, you make life for your fellow man that much harder. You text her, she doesn’t respond. Certainly you’re within your rights to send another text, aren’t you? And if she doesn’t respond again? Then what?

See, the more you text without being prompted, the more you come off like a possessive psychopath, and the more and more women become skeptical of future men they don’t know.

That means innocent, good guys end up getting lumped in with the creeps, when their only crime was sending perhaps one or two texts too many (instead of the 15 you sent because you wanted her to come over at 3 a.m. and play a game called “Let’s do something gross”).

And you know what you — Guy-who-texts-far-too-much — have caused? Now I gotta play it cool. Cooler than cool. Ice cold. And if the girl thinks I’m playing it too cool, well then she assumes I think I’m too good for her or don’t have any interest in her whatsoever. Do you see what you’ve done!? Do you see what you’re responsible for?

On the other hand, women usually text in bulk when compared to men anyway. If a guy is into it, he’ll put up with it. It he’s not, he’ll ignore it. Problem solved.

Emoticons. Every time someone sends a message with an emoticon, a puppy is murdered and sent straight to hell. That’s a fact.

Can we stop them? Can we kill the emoticon forever? ESPECIALLY for the Hims reading this: how can you punch in a or or, I don’t know, 8) without feeling like a little part of you just died? What does it even mean anyway? What does smiling mean? Isn’t that supposed to be a reaction, not an action? Can you preemptively smile at something? Would you in real life? Would you laugh before someone finished a joke? Would you cry before someone smashed your face in with a beer bottle?

Stop the insanity, please. I’ll even compromise for the Hers reading this.

Feel free to continue to send your smileys and kissy faces, just make sure it’s in moderation, and appropriate to the content it accompanies. But Hims? You’re officially on notice. Don’t make me pull up Verizon’s text logs and hunt you down like Jay and Silent Bob, because I will unleash fury upon your soul. And face, too.

Picture message at your own risk. I guess this could go for the Hims or the Hers, but I think we all know who we’re talking about. Here’s the rub: Men hang on to “special” pictures like herpes. Those pictures are the gift that keeps on giving. And they give forever, or at least until your hard drive fails.

HOWEVER, if a guy proliferates said pictures and distributes them to his friends, co-workers, the interweb, whatever, that guy is a total dick and you have every right to punch him in the fucking face. It’s a Jim Halpert move, a total dick maneuver. I mean, he’ll show them to his friends — there’s a pretty good probability of that happening — but showing and giving are two completely different kinds of breasts, er, beasts.

I don’t care if she’s a super, megabitch of an ex-girlfriend who went apeshit and torched all of your Affliction t-shirts (sucks bro!), you do NOT give copies of those pictures to other human beings. Not cool bro, not cool. That’s why they call it “show and tell”, not “show and share”.

Sexting. Notice, picture messaging your naughty bits and sexting are two different sections, because they are two different things! I don’t know what happened in the generation behind me that thought they could steal a word my generation invented and make it mean something else, but this debate ends now. Sexting is done with words, not pictures. Period.

And for the record, everyone loves sexting. Is it as good as the real thing? Of course not. It’s tofu to filet. But don’t let anyone — Him or Her — say otherwise, sexting is good old-fashioned fun. But that doesn’t mean it’s safe.

Just like picture messaging, you’ve got to trust your recipient. You don’t want them showing everyone that text where you said you wanted to [redacted] her [redacted] in the [redacted] while she [redacted] on your [redacted] before you [redacted] in her face. That’s just nasty.

If you play text-and-seek, kill yourself. Girl, don’t you dare initiate a text conversation without intending to continue it. It’s just awful. You are the devil. Especially if feelings or attraction is involved. I know what you’re doing you harpy (honestly I’ve never heard of men playing this game, my apologies if there are men guilty of this). You’re trying to get my attention — something we’ve covered in-depth at R&R — and you know damn well I won’t be able to resist.

I’m not going to just ignore your text. Why? Because I want to be sweet and tender with you, and I’m not trying to fuck that up. I understand that your 5th grade ballet teacher did such psychological damage to your self esteem that Professor X would be proud, but I’m not here to inflate your ego balloon when it starts to go flat.

That’s what grinding on strangers in the club is for.

Oh, Pitchfork. Your albums reviews are shining rainclouds in a world filled with rainbows and sunshine. You hate everything music has to offer, which seems strange considering you are a music publication, but that is just one of the many ways you Pitchfork people prove your superior wits to us lowly mouth-breathers. So let’s read one of your reviews together, so we can all be as educated on what should be considered good and what should be thrown into the Hudson Bay. Today’s album? Aziz Ansari’s Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening, brought to us by writer Ian Cohen, who rated the album an 8.1. [note: Pitchfork, R&R]

Funny People was a divisive movie, but here’s an indisputable fact: It was 146 minutes long.

This fact is indisputable. You cannot dispute it. To even suggest such a thing would be to spit in the face of every great thinker from Plato to Hawking. Here’s more indisputable facts: The earth? Roundish. Space? Big. Ecuador? Huge exporter of bananas. Facts.

Some consider its forbidding runtime a byproduct of Judd Apatow’s success and/or ego, others proof that his deep and genuine love for stand-up comedy inspired him to go all out to create its definitive film experience. I’m inclined to think the latter, since if you share Apatow’s obsession with the artform, there were just tons of inside jokes, Easter eggs, and knowing winks that made those two and a half hours pass a little more quickly.

Of course I liked it. Why? Because I get it. It was made for people like me. I know what to look for. Did you think you were simply supposed to sit there and enjoy the film? Poor, naïve child. Movies are rich tapestries of puzzles, or rich puzzles of tapestries — you must find the secret clues. Otherwise you didn’t really enjoy the movie, like I did.

Then again, this undersells the kind of crossover appeal Ansari brings to his record.

See? I used the word record. That means I can review this comedy album, even though IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MUSIC IN ANY WAY.

It’s not at all like Roger Ebert writing a critique about Jay-Z’s Blueprint 3. Nope. If anything, it would be like Ebert reviewing Jay-Z’s music videos, which would be stupid. Why would anybody listen to what a Ebert would have to say? What type of insight could someone give in which he knows nothing about the subject. How stupid would— oh.

Though “Human Giant” was the kind of sketch show that would book the National as musical guests, as Ansari relates here on “MTV’s Next”, they also tried to find ways to shoehorn jokes about getting raped by dinosaurs.

Aziz? He’d totally be on a TV series that would try and book the National. Totally. Get used to this, because I am going to hit you with as many musical references in the next, say, 500 words, so I can feel validated for my useless review.

What will I say next? Does he grip the mic like a young Raekwon? Does his voice sound grizzled, similar to that of a Clarence Greenwood? Are his jokes playful yet deep, like the lyrics to an Owl City song? Just kidding, Owl City sucks. They represent everything that Pitchfork stands against.

Much is made of Ansari’s ties to indie rock,

And by “much” I clearly mean “nothing”.

but in the span of one bit, you’ll hear “TV on the Radio” and “titties.” (Obviously, it’s one of the two about Kanye West.) It’s a tough gig to bridge the alternative scene at Upright Citizens Brigade and the business card swap meets at the Improv, but if there was a stand-up equivalent to the indie crossover of Phoenix’s crowd-pleasing Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, this might be it.

Holy Indie clusterfuck, I just threw in a TV on the Radio, Kanye West, Phoenix and Upright Citizens Brigade reference in two sentences. That’s how you earn your cardigan sweater and horn-rimmed glasses stipend!

In a similar way, it’s pop smarts that define Ansari’s performance: He’s relatable without pandering and clever without making a flex of intellect or being overly arch.

Pop smarts are like street smarts — you either have ‘em or you don’t. Who needs book smarts when you have pop smarts? You know who also has pop smarts? Sting. Sting has pop smarts. Anne Hathaway, too. You know who else? Jesus. That guy had some mean pop smarts. Not so much street smarts though, you know, with that whole “I’m knowingly going to walk into a trap and hand myself over to the people who want to kill me”. Not his best move.

In the album’s first bit, Ansari has already brought up gay marriage, Jamba Juice, and the fallibility of the SmartType feature: in terms of contemporary comedy, those may as well be C, G, and D chords.

More music metaphors, please. I need to rationalize the point of this review.

Ansari admits that he’s able to track people with celebrity crushes on him because “I do nothing but take naps all day!”

I don’t have any criticism here, that sounds just great. Naps are great. Except naps that run too close to bedtime, then you’ve just fucked up the next 36 hours of your life. Did I mean to fall asleep at 7 pm and wake up at 10? No! But it’s not my fault that Korean barbecue makes me sleepy. I couldn’t escape the itis, especially in the winter, when I crank the thermostat to a rain forest level of heat. Heat is like injecting the itis with steriods, it’s unstoppable.

But he often saves his best storytelling to relate what it’s like to hang out with famous musicians. Granted, most of it is, “I’m not even supposed to be here,” and straight-up journalism from an R. Kelly concert could often pass for comedy– you could make the argument that Kelly’s special brand of genius did all the heavy lifting.

You could make an argument that you would lose weight if you only ate rice cakes for one year. You could make an argument that Bel Biv Devoe was underrated. You could make the argument that farts smell far worse in the shower than anywhere else. You could make the argument that videos of small children being injured is funny, but of questionable taste. Will I make this argument? Maybe. Could I make this argument? Of course.

But Ansari nails what makes the spectacle so spectacular: Kelly leaving a club because he’s convinced he’ll never get a better lapdance, and of course, completely unexplained non sequiturs that dot his concerts.

I know how he could get a better lapdance that would end in the coitus of his choice — dress up like Thom Yorke and go over to Pitchfork‘s office. You wont even have to tip. In fact, the staffers there will probably pay you, Robert.

Perhaps the musician Ansari is most closely associated with is Kanye West, and his “Night Out With Kanye West” bit once again does so much to capture the tics: Before doing a private show at Kanye’s house, Ansari finds the singer alone, sitting on his couch listening to his own album. But earlier in the night, Kanye explains a long absence in the bathroom: “I was on an important phone call. I wasn’t taking a shit.” Between those two examples, he nails what often makes West such an engrossing figure– a guy with an enormous ego and an incessant need for approval.

Perhaps this is the truth — I could make that argument. Perhaps I could even make the argument that this is an indisputable fact. Perhaps. Or perhaps I could explain how Aziz Ansari’s comedy, on a deeper level, identifies the psychology of Kanye West, thus giving his album a deeper, more serious meaning of the world we live in as Americans.

Or I could just enjoy a good poop joke instead of finding meaning where there is none. Perhaps.

It’s 2010, and a famous comedian was able to do routines on R. Kelly and Kanye without using “pee on you” or “I’mma let you finish” jokes. Go see some more stand-up if that doesn’t register as cause for celebration.

It’s good to see that we still can’t get through an entire article without mentioning it.

I was browsing the fashion blog High Snobiety when I came across this abortion of sunwear, made by Linda Farrow Vintage. The post includes not only these faux-football visors but another pair similar to the Lady Gaga TV shades, shades which serve two purposes — to cause bodily injury to any idiot wearing sunglasses you can’t see out of, and to make said idiot look even more idiotic.

Let’s stop right here, and I’m going to meet the fashion industry at camera two. What? We don’t have a camera two? Fine. We’ll do this the old-fashioned way.

Fashion people? Are you listening?

Stop.

Stop doing stupid shit like this. I understand you have to push the boundaries of blah blah blah and whatever, but there is such a thing as a bad idea. And not matter what your weird co-workers think, you cannot have an idea so bad that it actually becomes good. The continuum of good and bad ideas is not a circle, that’s not how it works.

This is coming from a guy who has more than occasionally found himself the only straight guy in a clothing store, a person who understands that there are times when the fashion industry is allowed to sacrifice the practicality of clothing/accessories in order to push aesthetic boundaries.

BUT THAT DOESN’T GIVE YOU CARTE BLANCHE TO DO STUPID SHIT.

Shape up or ship out Linda Farrow Vintage, you’ve been warned.

This is Dan Black. As you might (or maybe not) be able to tell, he’s British. He’s electronica-ish from what I understand, and this is is first single from the album ((UN)), which was dropped in the UK July 13th. Nah Right points out that the drums to this song is from Rihanna‘s “Umbrella”, which is interesting, considering my crack team of researchers (Wikipedia) tells me he got his big break with the song “HYPNTZ”, which was a mash-up of “Umbrella” and B.I.G.’s “Hypnotize”.

The guy likes “Umbrella”, I guess.

Cudders jumped on the front and back of the song, giving it a “Shining Down”, “Supernova”, “Fighters” and “Lost” vibe, balancing rappers and singers together on a single track.

For the foreseeable future, the music industry is a pretty bare wasteland, and though this song is neither new nor coming off an upcoming album, it’s the best we can do right now.

“Symphonies (Remix)” (feat. KiD CuDi) – Dan Black ★★★

A terrible thing happened today to a place that I love. It’s a place you should love too, for good reason.

I grew up in Evanston, Ill., and just like everyone else on this planet, I am a product of my surroundings. I was raised in a place where I was fortunate enough to come across all walks of life, especially when I entered high school. At Evanston Township High School I played two sports, and by pure coincidence, both sports but me in direct contact with a number of Haitian and Haitian-Americans, some of whom I still consider good friends.

Though I knew nothing about the country itself during my time at ETHS, I firmly believed it was one of the coolest places in the world. Why? Because those teammates and coaches we some of the coolest people I knew, and at 14, that’s really all it takes  to like something you know nothing about.

When I reached college, I soon forgot about Haiti for the most part. I still had a soft place in my heart for it, but I was removed from my direct ties to it. Until sophomore year.

I picked-up a Latin American history class after I decided to add History as a major, and because I was in the honors program at the time, I had extra work to do.

At the encouragement of Professor Smale (a wonderful teacher. Here was a fearless man, born and raised outside Las Vegas — or maybe Texas — with bright orange hair and a goofy smile, who now spends time between the United States and Colombia — or maybe Bolivia — with his South American wife. His enthusiasm for the material was unrivaled, and it’s teachers like Professor Robert Smale that give our educational system hope) I decided to write a 20ish-page paper on the people of Haiti.

And I fell in love with the history of the place.

For the next four years, if an opportunity to further my knowledge of that unique country presented itself, I took it. My senior capstone was on the Haitian Revolution, one of the most significant events in world history, yet something that centuries of racism have made all but invisible in our historical textbooks.

If you live west of the Mississipi River, be especially thankful for the Haitians. When the Haitian Revolution began at the turn of the 19th century, Napoleon had planned to use Haiti to finance his conquest of Europe. It was a viable belief too, since two-thirds of France’s exports came from Haiti (then called Saint Domingue) at the time.

But the slaves of Haiti rebelled. And they succeeded, something that no slave revolt had ever done before or has ever done since. Napoleon sent endless waves of French soldiers to try and subdue the Africans who dominated the island, led by heroic men such as Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Vincent Ogé, André Rigaud and, of course, Toussaint L’Ouverture.

One of history’s finest quotes comes from L’Ouverture, who, when told he was to be arrested and sent back to France, said, “Your ship cannot hold a man like me.”

With Haiti in turmoil, Napoleon needed to find a way to finance not only his current campaign in Europe, but the war to put Haitians back into bondage. So he sold some land.

The Louisiana Purchase to be exact.

Haitian is directly responsible for the make up of the United States of America.

That’s just one story of how a country we consider so poor and so weak is actually one of the greatest  stories of success in human history. They were the second independent country in the Western Hemisphere, at a time when most its citizens were slaves in any other country. Their defeat of the French substantially weakened Napoleon’s army, which would be defeated by the Russians shortly thereafter. Haitian were known to paddle little more than canoes to places like Florida and Jamaica and stir up abolitionist movements.

These are just a few more stories.

Today, an earthquake ravaged the most populous city in a country we had all but forgotten about. I beg you, after you tell those you love how thankful you are for them, go to Yele.org and help pick up a nation that has had to pick themselves up time after time after time.

Haiti is worth saving. Its people are descendants of some of humanity’s greatest heroes, responsible for shaping the world you live in today.

Haiti is worth saving.

Laid out by the New York Times, discover how PR and big business are turning your news into a mockery.

Essentially, this “news” that we’re learning about is a carefully managed PR move done. A PR move by an agency who just so happens to be owned by the same people that represent Bob Costas, the man at the MLB network that got an exclusive interview. Not to mention it’s the MLB network, the business that technically formerly and currently employs Mark McGwire.

It important to note that this doesn’t mean Bob Costas was lobbing softballs, it doesn’t means that everyone had a hand in the action. It just shows how commonplace it is for journalistic lines — lines which should always be clearly defined, transparent and uncompromising — to be ignored.

It used to be that journalists had a responsibility to be transparent and forthwith with all of their information, and sadly in this day that responsibility  has partly fallen onto the consumer. It is still critically important for journalists to be held to a higher standard, but if we think they can do the job on their own we are kidding ourselves.

Make sure you know how you get your news. Read news from reputable sources and multiple sources. Mark McGwire’s steroid use may be if little (if any) importance, but you never know what the next big story is going to be, and how it’s going to change your life.