Comics? Check. Coupons? Check. Parade? Check. Magazine on racial and ethnic issues in the U.S.? Starting this Sunday, check. Along with the cheesy Parade and the piles of paper-wasting inserts from Best Buy and Wal-Mart, many Sunday paper readers will find Rise Up, a Kansas-City-based weekly magazine that purports to "celebrate race and ethnicity and help us better understand our differences, celebrate our commonalities and build a great foundation to bridge the gaps that divide us." And, if it comes sandwiched between the latest Dilbert comic and a Parade cover story about Valerie Bertinelli's battle to overcome her coke addiction, it might actually force people to notice or talk about things they spend a lot of time not trying to notice or talk about.

Unlike most race-related initiatives these days, publisher and editor Janice Ellis was inspired by the Jena Six controversy. With magazines that are expressly about racial issues, and not any one specific race, in short supply, it's sort of huge that this insert will reach 4.5 million homes through newspapers like the New York Daily News, Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and the Los Angeles Times. Actually, it's only huge if it's any good. Time will tell… [NSWK]