She Won't Learn............

Rapper Foxy Brown has received 76 days in punitive segregation after she scuffled with another inmate at Rikers Island jail, authorities said Tuesday.

Brown was separated from other inmates on Oct. 16, said Stephen Morello, deputy commissioner for public information for the city's correction department.

Brown, 28, and another inmate got into a shoving match earlier this month, said Morello, adding he didn't know why the two were fighting. Neither inmate was injured.

Following that incident, Morello said Brown was abusive toward correction guards and then refused to take a random drug test.

The combined violations, Morello said, earned Brown more than two months in punitive segregation, where an inmate can spend up to 23 hours a day in isolation.

A message left with Brown's lawyer was not immediately returned.

Brown is serving a year at Rikers for violating her probation in a case stemming from a Manhattan fight she had with manicurists in a nail salon.

Authorities said Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, skipped her required anger management classes and traveled out of the city without permission.

Brown also refused to attend court in Brooklyn Oct. 12 after she was accused of throwing a cell phone at a neighbor who complained about the volume of her car radio in August. Four days later, she appeared in court and was arraigned on charges of assault, attempted assault, menacing and criminal possession of a weapon — the cell phone. She has pleaded not guilty.

“I’ll rape him if he doesn’t have sex with me.”

A 19-year-old Lincoln woman has been arrested for statutory rape for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old boy in her car.

According to court records, on July 22 the alleged victim and two other boys were riding around with Tiffany K. King, 5130 W. Elba St., in her purple 1997 Plymouth Neon.

When King stopped the car so the alleged victim could get a bag he had left behind, she allegedly told the other boys, “I’ll rape him if he doesn’t have sex with me,” according to the arrest affidavit.

Around 9:50 p.m. they allegedly drove to a park in Air Park, where the two other boys allegedly got out of the car to go skateboarding and King allegedly had sex with the 14-year-old boy. One of the other boys allegedly saw them having sex.

King and the boy allegedly had sex again the next day around 11 p.m. in the Arnold Elementary School parking lot.

She was arrested Thursday on suspicion of first-degree sexual assault.

Second Chances Don't Apply to Just Everybody......

Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees is not getting her tiara back after losing it because she appeared in a slew of prurient pictures — and that's final, pageant officials said Friday in response to speculation stirred up by pageant co-owner Donald Trump.

"The Miss Universe Organization has thoroughly considered the request of Ms. Katie Rees to be reinstated as Miss Nevada USA 2007," Paula M. Shugart, president of the Miss Universe Organization, said in a statement released to The Associated Press. "In light of the serious nature of the circumstances, there is no recourse but to stand by our decision."

Trump, who owns the Miss Universe Organization and Miss USA with NBC, told the television show "Extra" in a segment broadcast Thursday that he was looking at the Dec. 21 decision to fire Rees, fueling buzz that the beauty queen might be reinstated.

Rees was stripped of her title after racy photos of her appeared on the Internet. Some of the photos showed Rees, 22, kissing other young women, exposing one of her breasts and pulling down her pants to show her thong underwear at a party in Tampa, Fla.

Rees' lawyer had also asked that his client be given a second chance similar to the one recently given to Miss USA Tara Conner, who was caught drinking in New York bars when she was still underage.

Trump decided to allow Conner to remain Miss USA after she agreed to go into rehab and undergo drug testing.

The Drinks Made Him Do It.....

Country superstar Keith Urban cheated on Nicole Kidman with a sexy lingerie model up until a month before their wedding day.

That’s the shocking claim of 23-year-old Amanda Wyatt, who swears she had unprotected sex with hard-partying Urban while he was dating Kidman.

“I’m sorry if I hurt Nicole, but I just want to tell the truth and move on,” the part-time Nashville model told London’s Mail on Sunday. “I hope that she finds happiness with him, but Keith is a deeply troubled man.” Wyatt told the paper she met Urban, 39, at a Nashville bar in 2004 and sought a one-night stand. But she said their wild night together, fueled by drugs and alcohol, was only the beginning.

“We were together throughout the whole time he was dating Nicole and engaged to her, right through 2005 and to around May 2006,” she claimed.

Urban married Kidman in Australia last June. Four months later, he checked into the Betty Ford rehabilitation clinic. Urban and Kidman spent the Christmas holiday together.

Wyatt alleged the country singer, whose latest single is "Stupid Boy," was rarely sober during their affair.

"He drank constantly - his favorite was Crown Royal Reserve whisky - and he did drugs," Wyatt told the Mail. "Ecstasy, cocaine, pot - you name it."

Wyatt said Urban sent her explicit text messages inviting her to his Nashville mansion for sex while Kidman was out of town. She claimed he often swam naked with her in his pool and enjoyed taking bubble baths with her.

"He told me he loved me. He was always telling me how I made him feel young, how I was sexy and beautiful. It was a real turn-on," the Mail quoted her as saying. "I sometimes wonder if he said the same thing to Nicole."

Wyatt was paid by the newspaper for the interview. Urban’s publicist, Paul Freundlich, has dismissed her claims as fiction.

She's Your Queen To Be..........

When Miss USA Tara Conner tearfully acknowledged partying in New York bars, she was given a second chance to keep her crown.

But there apparently will be no second chance for Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees. She was stripped of her title Thursday after racy photos of her appeared on the Internet, pageant officials said. Some photos show Rees, 22, kissing other young women, exposing one of her breasts and pulling down her pants to show her thong underwear at a party in Tampa, Fla.

"Katie Rees has been relieved of her duties as Miss Nevada USA 2007,"
said Paula M. Shugart, president of the Miss Universe Organization, which owns the Miss USA pageant and others.

Pageant co-owner Donald Trump said he had been put off by the photos.

"I saw some horrendous pictures," Trump told the New York Post. "I'm not shy when it comes to pictures, and these pictures were far beyond the scope of what she should be doing - there was no question."

Rees' dismissal comes two days after Conner was allowed to keep her tiara when she agreed to go into alcohol rehab, and a day after an anti-drunken driving group cut its ties with the hard-partying Miss Teen USA Katie Blair.

Pageant officials declined to provide a telephone number for Rees and said they didn't know when the photos of her were taken.

Rees' attorney, Mario Torres, of Tampa, defended the blond beauty queen in a statement sent to the entertainment television show "Extra."

"Katie Rees Miss Nevada USA wants the public to know she was 17 and had a lapse in judgment," he said. "The actions on that evening in subject are in no way indicative of the person she is or the person she has become ... she is a law-abiding citizen and talented adult. This was an isolated incident that occurred more than five years ago when she was a minor."

Shugart made the decision to jettison Rees, and Trump supported it, said Miss Universe Organization spokeswoman Lark-Marie Anton. Trump co-owns Miss Universe with NBC.

Rees has appeared as Miss Nevada USA at charity events such as the Goodie Two Shoe Giveaway, at which underprivileged students received free shoes, backpacks and school supplies.

Shugart said first runner-up Helen Salas will assume the title and compete at the next Miss USA pageant on March 23 in Los Angeles.

Trump gave Conner, 21, a reprieve after meeting with her Tuesday. Trump said Conner, who agreed to undergo drug testing, was a good person and deserved to keep her title.

"I think Tara is going to be the great comeback kid," Trump said.

In another beauty pageant brouhaha, Mothers Against Drunk Driving said Wednesday it was ditching Blair because it was "disappointed" by news reports that the 18-year-old from Billings, Mont., had been spotted partying with Conner in New York clubs.

What the Hell..........

This story caught my attention. I'm not really sure where they are going with this one. Anyway, check this out courtesy of CNN.

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) -- A tiny town in western Pennsylvania could ask all of its residents to own guns, if a proposal under consideration on Wednesday wins approval from local officials.

Under the proposed law, residents of Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania, would be asked to own guns and know how to use them. Cherry Tree, 70 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, has about 400 residents.

The town council was scheduled to vote on the proposed "Civil Protection Ordinance" on Wednesday evening.

Introduced last month by resident Henry Statkowski, the measure recommends that "all heads of households maintain a firearm along with ammunition."

In written comments, Statkowski said homeowners have a right and a responsibility to defend against intruders rather than calling police and waiting for help to arrive.

Virgin To Lose It Live On Tv

A retired vicar is to become one of the four virgins to have their cherries popped live on TV as part of a reality show that sees the frigid foursome indulge in ‘sex therapy’ in the sinful city of Amsterdam

Learning ‘the art of intimacy’, cameras will follow the contestants being coached by sex therapists for three months at a Dutch sex school before their final deflowering is filmed live.

The contestants range in age from 20 and upwards and include a man who has developed a fear of female intimacy after developing glandular fever after kissing a girl in his teenage years.

The show, Virgin School, will be shown in a week of programmes by Channel 4 centred around sex, with the finale involving a mass public wankathon

No Excuse

Editors Note: These two stories are example of where we really are in society.

Has He Lost His mind

He called two black hecklers the "n-word" and enthusiastically referenced a time when blacks were often victims of civil rights abuses, but Michael Richards said his verbal barrage during a stand-up routine was fueled by anger and not bigotry.

"For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry," the former "Seinfeld" co-star said during a satellite appearance for David Letterman's "Late Show" in New York.

"I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this," Richards said, his tone becoming angry and frustrated as he defended himself.

Richards described himself as going into "a rage" over the two audience members who interrupted his act Friday at the Laugh Factory in West Hollywood.

His explanation was reminiscent of Mel Gibson's assertion that he wasn't anti-Semitic after he let off a barrage of Jewish slurs during a traffic stop last summer: despite what came out of his mouth, that's not what is inside him.

Industry colleagues were in no hurry to accept Richards' apology.

"Once the word comes out of your mouth and you don't happen to be African-American, then you have a whole lot of explaining," comedian Paul Rodriguez, who was at the Laugh Factory during Richards' performance, told CNN. "Freedom of speech has its limitations and I think Michael Richards found those limitations."

Veteran publicist Michael Levine, whose clients have included comedians George Carlin, Sam Kinison and Rodney Dangerfield, called Richards' remarks inexcusable. Comics often face hecklers without losing their cool, he said.

"I've never seen anything like this in my life," Levine said Monday. "I think it's a career ruiner for him. ... It's going to be a long road back for him, if at all."

His Laugh Factory tirade began after the two clubgoers shouted at him that he wasn't funny. A videotape of the incident was posted on TMZ.com.

Richards retorted: "Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a f------ fork up your a--."

He then paced across the stage taunting the men for interrupting his show, peppering his speech with racial slurs and profanities.

"You can talk, you can talk, you're brave now mother------. Throw his a-- out. He's a n-----!" Richards shouts before repeating the racial epithet over and over again.

Moderating his tone at one point, Richards tells the audience, "It shocks you, it shocks you" and refers to "what lays buried."

While there is some chuckling in the audience throughout the outburst, someone can be heard gasping "Oh my God" and people respond with "ooh" after Richards uses the n-word.

Eventually someone calls out: "It's not funny. That's why you're a reject, never had no shows, never had no movies. `Seinfeld,' that's it."

Richards deserved the chance to apologize, Jerry Seinfeld said on the "Late Show."

"He's someone that I love and I know how shattered he is about" what happened, Seinfeld said.

At one point, however, Richards grew flustered and expressed second thoughts about appearing on the program when his use of the term "Afro-American" caused some audience members to laugh.

"I'm hearing your audience laugh and I'm not even sure that this is where I should be addressing the situation," he said.

Richards, 57, who played Seinfeld's eccentric neighbor Kramer on the hit 1989-98 sitcom, hadn't spoken publicly about his remarks before "Late Show."

They have lost their minds too

Johns Hopkins University has put a fraternity on social probation because of a "Halloween in the Hood" party that angered members of the Black Student Union and sparked debate about race relations.

The university's Student Conduct Board hearing panel found the Sigma Chi fraternity guilty of all charges filed by the administration, including failure to supervise the conduct of the member who wrote the party invitation, resulting in harassment and intimidation.

University officials pledged Monday to continue efforts they started after the Halloween weekend party to promote racial healing. University administrators have held two campus-wide forums and meetings with the Black Student Union.

The Sigma Chi chapter was placed on social probation until January 2008, meaning it is barred from holding parties and other social events.

The university said it also must recruit four adult advisers and incorporate diversity training into its new members program.

The university's Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action concluded that the invitation to the party played on racial stereotypes by encouraging attendees to wear "regional clothing from our locale" such as "bling bling ice ice, grills" and "hoochie hoops."

However, it found that a skeleton hanging from a rope noose was meant to represent the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie and not to symbolize a lynching.

High Times on the High Seas

Tipped off by three plastic pipes mysteriously skimming the ocean's surface, authorities seized a homemade submarine packed with 3 tons of cocaine off Costa Rica's Pacific coast.

Four men traveled inside the 50-foot wood and fiberglass craft, breathing through the pipes. The craft sailed along at about 7 mph, just six feet beneath the surface, Security Minister Fernando Berrocal said Sunday.

The submarine was spotted Friday 103 miles off the coast near Cabo Blanco National Park on the Nicoya peninsula.

"This is the first time in the country's history that a craft with these characteristics has been caught near the national coasts," Berrocal said in a statement.

U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, FBI and Colombian officials aided Costa Rican authorities in the operation, Berrocal said.

Two Colombians, a Guatemalan and a Sri Lankan were arrested and taken to the United States, since they were captured in international waters, Berrocal said.

Officials took the submarine to a Costa Rican Coast Guard station and were trying to determine its origins, the Security Ministry said. It was found with several tanks of gas, but Costa Rican authorities said the vessel, which had a bailer to keep out water, probably did not travel far.

So far this year, Costa Rican authorities have seized 18 tons of cocaine.

In March, the Colombian navy seized a 60-foot fiberglass submarine that likely was used to haul tons of cocaine out to speedboats in the Pacific Ocean for transportation to Central America and on to the United States. Three people were arrested and two speedboats seized during the operation, but no drugs were found.

Colombian authorities say smuggling cocaine by sea has become the top method of transport in recent years, as radar systems have made it difficult to smuggle drugs in small airplanes.

The Frenzy Begins

Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the new Playstation 3 game system to go on sale early Friday and shot a man who refused to give up his money, authorities said.

In other states, customers pushed and shoved their way to the shelves to get at the limited supply, and in Kentucky, four people were grazed by BBs fired from a passing vehicle as they waited for a Best Buy store to open.

The two gunman in Putnam confronted 15 to 20 people standing outside a Wal-Mart store shortly after 3 a.m. and demanded money, said State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance.

"One of the patrons resisted. That patron was shot," Vance said.

He said the two gunmen fled after shooting a 21-year-old Massachusetts man in the chest and shoulder. The victim was taken to University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester. There was no immediate word on his condition.

Vance said police were searching for the suspects, both believed to be in their teens. He said one was wearing a ski mask and brandishing a handgun, and the other had what appeared to be a shotgun.

Aside from the police tape, things had returned to normal by midmorning at the Wal-Mart store in rural Putnam, a town of about 9,000 residents near the Massachusetts and Rhode Island borders.

Short supplies of the PS3 and strong demand led to lines of buyers, some waiting for days, outside stores across the country.

In Palmdale, Calif., authorities shut down a Super Wal-Mart after some shoppers got rowdy late Wednesday. In West Bend, Wis., a 19-year-old man was injured when he ran into a pole racing with 50 others for one of 10 spots outside a Wal-Mart.

In Lexington, Ky., someone fired BB pellets from a passing vehicle at people waiting outside a Best Buy store, according to WKYT, whose own reporter said she was among four people grazed while she interviewed buyers in line.

A Best Buy in Boston, aware it had only 140 of the consoles, got smart about the big sale — its employees gave out tickets to the first 140 people in line so everyone could go home until the store opened.

Now He's Talking

In a new TV interview and book, O.J. Simpson discusses how he would have committed the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend "if I did it."

The two-part television interview, titled "O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened," will air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29 on Fox, the TV network said Tuesday.

"O.J. Simpson, in his own words, tells for the first time how he would have committed the murders if he were the one responsible for the crimes," the network said in a statement. "In the two-part event, Simpson describes how he would have carried out the murders he has vehemently denied committing for over a decade."

"This is an interview that no one thought would ever happen. Its the definitive last chapter in the Trial of the Century," Mike Darnell, executive vice president of alternative programming for Fox, said in a statement.

The interview, conducted with book publisher Judith Regan, will air days before Simpson's new book, "If I Did It," goes on sale Nov. 30. The book "hypothetically describes how the murders would have been committed," the network said.

The book is published by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers run by Regan.

Simpson, who now lives in Florida, was acquitted in a criminal trial of the 1994 killings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson was later found liable in 1997 in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Goldman family.

Messages left with Simpson and his attorney Yale Galanter were not returned Tuesday night.

What can you say? It's Borat.

While teaching American humor to a gregarious and absurdly out-of-touch foreign journalist, Pat Haggerty realized something was off who WAS this guy?

Haggerty, a public speaking coach from Washington, is one of the unwitting co-stars of the surprise hit movie "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit of Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Haggerty has no hard feelings toward Borat, aka comedian Sacha Baron Cohen but the same can't be said for others who were humiliated, thanks to the awkward fellow with the bushy mustache.

Their embarrassment over the film's hilarious, cringe-inducing blend of fiction and improvised comedy is magnified by its success "Borat" has topped the box office two weeks in a row, earning a total of $67.8 million.

Last year, Haggerty agreed to be filmed for what he thought was a benign documentary on his client's journey across America. He hurriedly signed a release form, was paid $400, and the lesson began.

As cameras rolled, his client told raunchy stories in garbled English and laughed heartily at the expense of handicapped people. "And then, I'm starting to smell a rat," Haggerty told The Associated Press. "Each passing minute I'm going, `You know, this can't be real.'"

Confused, he ended up playing along. He later figured out thanks to his son, an HBO-watching college student that he'd been duped.

Duped by Borat.

"They were exercising a First Amendment right," said Haggerty, adding that he enjoyed the movie. "And this Sacha Cohen guy's going to make 87 gazillion dollars. You know, good for him. I'm just sorry that he had to do it in such a way that he allowed people to make jerks out of themselves exposing their character flaws."

Two of Cohen's targets fraternity boys who made drunken, insulting comments about women and minorities are suing 20th Century Fox and three production companies. The lawsuit claims that a production crew took the students to a bar to "loosen up" before participating in what they were told would be a documentary to be shown outside of the United States, and that they signed waivers after drinking heavily. Studio spokesman Gregg Brilliant said the lawsuit "has no merit."

Cohen's behavior also wasn't funny to former TV producer Dharma Arthur, who claims she was duped into giving Cohen airtime on a morning show segment in Jackson, Miss. Cohen's live appearance, in which he said he had to go "urine" and hugged a bemused weatherman, led her life into a downward spiral, she told the AP. She is seeking an apology.

Although Arthur has said she was fired from the show, she told the AP that she left the station.

Kathie Martin, who runs an etiquette school in Birmingham, Ala., was also left out of the joke. Even though she was gracious and calm when Borat showed her nude photos of his son, Martin admitted she was "taken aback" by his schtick during their on-camera meeting.

"Unless you can figure it out for yourself, you have no way of knowing you have been tricked into being part of a childish prank with an R rating attached," she told the AP in an e-mail.

"And even if you figure it out, you've signed a release that Mr. Cohen's people say relinquishes any rights on your part to take action against them."

Ronald Miller, of Natchez, Miss., was baffled by the ruse. He and his wife attended a dinner at a plantation house, which they were told would be an interview with an "Eastern European television reporter coming to Natchez to film social customs in the South," he told the AP.

Borat disturbed guests, Miller said, by making anti-Semitic remarks and saying slavery was wonderful. He also invited a dinner guest a woman posing as a prostitute to join the group.

In another scene in the film, former "Baywatch" babe Pamela Anderson was attacked by Borat's alter ego at a book signing, and he later chased her through a parking lot.

Did she learn of his antics in advance? Yep, claims Anderson.

"I love Borat ... Of course (Sacha) and I planned this years ago," she wrote in a recent post on her Web site. "And it turned out perfect I'm so happy for him."

Check her out

Award-winning sex blogger turned successful author Abby Lee has just about had her fill of dating introverted British men -- so much so she is considering moving to New York to take a sabbatical from them.

Her book "Girl With a One-Track Mind: Confessions of the Seductress Next Door" has sold over 40,000 copies in Britain, and has been in the UK's top 20 non-fiction paperback chart for the last 12 weeks.

The book catalogues Lee's sexual life over a year -- the one-night stands, casual flings and same-sex relationships -- all of which are recorded in intimate detail.

But she has reached an impasse with the British male and has high hopes the American species will provide better mating material.

"I find Englishmen's half-hearted approach to dating so tiresome," the 33-year-old Lee -- whose real name is Zoe Margolis -- told Reuters in an interview.

"The only way Englishmen can relate to women is when they're drunk. I've met some really open-minded guys in the U.S., where in England there is much more of a laddish, soccer culture."

Lee rejects the suggestion she is Britain's answer to "Sex and the City" author Candace Bushnell, who established a reputation for breaking taboos with talk of sex toys and intimate acts.

"The route to happiness in 'Sex and the City' was about making money and having a lot of clothes and shoes," said Lee. "For me it's not about materialism, it's about finding the answers in yourself."

Sporting a pierced tongue, Lee is as frank in person as she in print, arguing her attitude to sex has more do with her liberal upbringing than genes.

"My parents were hippies, who had a progressive attitude to sex. I remember being barely out of nappies and going on demos and marches and I was brought up to question how society conditions us to act and think in certain ways."

She won the book deal after her blog -- www.girlwithaone trackmind.blogspot.com -- attracted millions of visitors and won the Best British or Irish Blog at the 2006 Bloggies awards.

As well as Britain, Lee has secured book publishing deals in five other European countries along with China and the U.S.

Her work is not only about the pursuit of carnal delights -- she is almost as evangelic about sexual politics as she is about experiencing erotic pleasure.

"If I can start up a debate about sex and sexuality that is going to result in more progressive attitudes then great, though I'm expecting a lot of hate mail.

"The fact that I have been called a slut and my life described as sordid and shameless shows we've a long way to go and that's why it's important I do these things."

Lee had wanted to keep her identity secret while writing the blog and book -- she even had a different mobile phone to receive calls for her nom de plume -- but that all changed when her name was "outed" by the Sunday Times newspaper.

"My entire social network suddenly knew the most intimate details about me and I had newspapers and photographers sitting in my front garden," said Lee. "I can laugh about it now, but at the time it was horrible."

Lee believes her outing will make it hard for to resume her previous career in the film industry and fears the loss of anonymity will change men's perception of her.

"I've detailed my sex life in a very public way and that is going to be difficult for any man to deal with. It would be hard for them to have any privacy, but I'm prepared to be optimistic -- I've got to be."

I'm still waiting on somebody with sense besides me to say enough with the ignorance already

This is incredibly insane, but yet and still this will continue to happen. Eventually Black people will willingly beat and chain themselves again, and refer to themselves as slaves. Please read the article. this is sad.

Damon Wayans Tries to Trademark N Word for Clothing Line
By Rogers Cadenhead


www.wired.com/news/techno...technology

The actor Damon Wayans has been engaged in a 14-month fight to trademark the term "Nigga" for a clothing line and retail store, a search of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's online database reveals.

Wayans wants to dress customers in 14 kinds of attire from tops to bottoms, and use the controversial mark on "clothing, books, music and general merchandise," as well as movies, TV and the internet, according to his applications.

But, so far, his applications have been unsuccessful. Trademark examiner Kelly Boulton rejected the registration dated Dec. 22, citing a law that prohibits marks that are "immoral or scandalous." A previous attempt by Wayans was turned down on identical grounds six months earlier.

"While debate exists about in-group uses of the term, 'nigga' is almost universally understood to be derogatory," Boulton wrote to Wayans' attorney, William H. Cox, according to the application.

Cox and other representatives of the actor did not respond to interview requests about the registration.

Wayans can appeal the rejection, but experts in trademark law differ on his chances for success.

Lynda Zadra-Symes, a trademark lawyer in California, said Wayans may be successful. She compared "Nigga" to the successful registration of Dykes on Bikes. The San Francisco Women's Motorcycle Contingent fought the Trademark Office for three years to overturn an initial rejection of a Dykes on Bikes trademark. The mark was published Jan. 24.

"Because the application was by a group of lesbians it was eventually allowed to publish," Zadra-Symes said.

"This is a great victory," the group proclaimed on its website. "It affirms our right to determine who we are and how we present ourselves to the world."

However, Tawnya Wojciechowski, another trademark attorney practicing in California, compared Wayans' application to the ongoing legal case where Washington Redskins trademarks have been challenged by seven Native Americans. "They're going to have a really tough time," Wojciechowski predicted.

The word "nigga" is ubiquitous in hip-hop music, where it provides half of a rhyming couplet radio listeners never get to hear in the Grammy-winning song "Gold Digger" by Kanye West.

Ol' Dirty Bastard used the term 76 times in the 1999 album Nigga Please, not counting repetitions in a chorus.

In January, an episode of the late-night Cartoon Network series Boondocks was criticized for putting the word in the mouth of a fictionalized Martin Luther King Jr.

The effort to commercialize "nigga" drew a sharp response from a black school official who participated in a forum about the word earlier this month at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

"I don't care for it in any form," said Dr. Lonnie Williams, associate vice chancellor for student affairs. "Either way you pronounce it, spell it, anything associated with it -- I find it offensive."

If Wayans succeeds in persuading the Trademark Office to permit the mark, he may have to deal with Keon Rhodan, a 29-year-old entrepreneur in Charleston, South Carolina, who has been using "Nigga" on a line of T-shirts, hoodies and other attire for six years in a part-time, trunk-of-his-car business.

Rhodan attempted to register "Nigga'Clothing" as a trademark in 2001 and was denied by the Trademark Office.

"They said it was disparaging," he said.

Rhodan, who is black, said that he's sold around 2,000 of the shirts at events. When he began selling the shirts, emblazoned with the term "Nigga," he thought he would take criticism, especially from older people.

"I was in the mall with one of the shirts on, and an old lady said, 'Where did you get that shirt from?'" he said, expecting the worst. "She followed me to the car and bought five shirts for her grandchildren."

Rhodan believes that affectionate use of the term within the black community should make it an acceptable mark, but the Trademark Office has thus far has not been persuaded by that argument.

"The very fact that debate is ongoing regarding in-group usage, shows that a substantial composite of African-Americans find the term 'nigga' to be offensive," Boulton wrote in rejecting Wayans.

Though attempts to commercialize "Nigga" coincide with a generational shift in how the word is perceived, the clothing is still likely to test some boundaries, as Rhodan demonstrated in a phone interview.

"You couldn't wear it," he said.