It's the handiwork of Florida businessman Mike Meehan, and he's paid to have three of them raised around Orlando. According to Meehan, who says it's important for voters to remember to focus on the war, he is a proud Republican and "a man of God." What God thinks about using the deaths of thousands of people for political gain, nobody knows.

[Source]

• Gabby gets work! Gabrielle Union has joined Beyonce and Adrien Brody in Cadillac Records. [IESB]

• A judge just okayed a $24 million settlement to 10,000 black Walgreens employees who were discriminated against. [KCS]

• I think I'm going to have to see this non-racist tea "advert." [UKP]

• Here's some bright, sunshiny listening material to get your morning going. [NPR]

• The "who are the candidates distantly related to?" game has gotten really old. Does knowing that Barack Obama is related to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie is related to Hillary Clinton do anything for you? [AP]

Initially we hadn't noticed, but thanks to some commenters with smuttier minds than those of our own, we can now see that, indeed, this Lil' Wayne condom ad does seem to portray rough, interracial, gay sex. Thanks, guys.

Jermaine Dupri gamely does his part to perpetuate stereotypes in this new Dunkin' Donuts commercial. Keep up the good work!

[RMC]

How many performers examine their earlier work and think about how they may have compromised themselves, by playing up black stereotypes or doing work they weren't comfortable with, in order to move their careers forward? Black models in particular seem to have tons of stories like these, and Alek Wek is no different. In her new book, Alek, she writes about a calendar she did for LaVazza coffee ten years ago that still bothers her.

Wek writes how she posed nude inside a "gigantic white espresso cup bigger than a car . . . My skin was to be the espresso." While she calls the images "beautiful," Wek adds: "I can't help but compare them to all the images of black people that have been used in marketing over the decades. There was the big-lipped jungle-dweller on the blackamoor ceramic mugs sold in the '40s; the golliwog badges given away with jam; Little Black Sambo, who decorated the walls of an American restaurant chain in the 1960s; and Uncle Ben, whose apparently benign image still sells rice."

Good news for Alek Wek: I used all of my google image search skills and couldn't find the shot. She needn't worry about it going down in history like Uncle Ben. I mean, Chairman Ben.

[NYP]

• Are Tisha Campbell and Duane Martin getting divorced or not? And is he gay? [CL]

• Deion Sanders gets his own reality show on Oxygen? I don't understand what TV execs have been smoking lately. [EUR]

• I can't imagine Vanessa Huxtable faring well in the Australian Outback. [SP]

• It turns out the Newark murders were not black on black crime after all. [CNN]

• And the advertising industry sinks even lower… [Racialicious]

Uncle Ben, of rice-in-a-box fame, recently got promoted from house slave to "CEO." Don't ask. I don't really get it, either. For the record, Aunt Jemima has had no such luck. It still sucks for women in the workplace.

Anyway, to commemorate, Slate put together a fun little slide show of the most egregious examples of racist spokescharacters. Most are based on black stereotypes, but there are a few Mexicans and Native Americans in there for good measure. According to Slate, racial stereotypes are slowly getting phased out of modern advertisements. Maybe they missed this Red Stripe ad.

[Slate]