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Clje Cljarlotte
LIFE
THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 20C6
Section
Project
for girls’
prom
attire
SPECIALTO THE POST '
New or slightly used formal
dresses, accessories and shoes
are just some of the items Girl
Talk Foundation, Inc. will col
lect during JD’s Fourth
Annual Prom Project April 7,
8am-6pm at ImaginOn: The
Joe & Joan Martin Center,
300 E- Seventh Street,
Charlotte.
Janine Davis, a radio per
sonality with WPEG and exec
utive director of Girl Talk
Foundation, Inc. will host a
10-hour hve remote from the
dress drop-off location. All of
the dresses collected will be
donated to young girls in need.
“Every girl dreams of being a
princess at least one night in
her life,” says Davis. “I want to
help make that dream come
true. Not everyone is in a posi
tion to buy a dress. What bet
ter way to help out than to
donate dresses to those young
ladies who need them.”
Girls will get to choose their
gowns at a make-shift bou
tique on Saturday April 8th,
10am-1pm at Im^inOn.
As a pre-requisite to shop
ping, young ladies will also
complete an etiquette class
sponsored by Dr. Miracle’s
Hair Care System featuring
national hair stjdist Donna
Langley and hair educator
Kathleen Johnson. The class
is designed to provide girls
with the skills needed to pull
off a totally classy evenir^.
Over the past four years,
G^irl Talk Foundation, Inc. has
collected over 1500 gowns for
your^ ladies in need. Most
. recipients of the dresses are
young ladies from the Girl
Talk mentoiing program and,
the Charlotte-Mecklenbirrg
School Sj^tem.
Girls interested in receiving
a gown, must register at
www,girltalkfoundation,oi^ or
call the Girl Talk office at 704-
335-5885. Girls can also regis
ter at ImaginOn by calling
704-973-2728.
M
PHOTO/101 BRIDALGOWNS.COM
Singer/actress
FILE PHOTO/WADE NASH
Knowles, is no stranger to hooking up white in her fashion statement.
White’s all right
Designers rediscover its versatility for spring, summer
niE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK-Afler
years of thi'owing at
shoppers every bright
color they could con
coct—often pimctuated
bymetallics and beads—
fashion designers are
declaring spring a more
peaceful and tranquil
Many of the button-
down shirts, crocheted
sweaters, eyelet dresses
and hi^-waisted pants
in stores this season are
offered in Grand
Cayman sand, cappucci
no foam or moonli^t—
all fancy names for
white.
Offering white for
spring and summer is, of
course, nothing new. But
it is both fresh and
refreshing,
“I think Ihe interesting
. thing is we’ve had qviite a
few years of bling, bhng,
bling, bling, bling. Tb me,
it’s like too rich of a meal.
At some point, you need
to cleanse your palate,”
says designer Michael
Kors.
The emphasis of the
clothes shifts from an
attention-grabbing hue
to the cut, subtle details
and luxuriousness of fab
rics, he says. That’s not
to say it’s a borir^ fash
ion season, he adds, but
there’s a restraint that
was needed. ‘It’s roman
tic miniTnaligm, which,
yes, is an oxymoron. ...
It’s hke puttii^ Splenda
in the ice tea. It’s sweet
but not too sugary”
Wearing white, espe
cially in a dty always
makes peofile look as if
they’re above the fray
Kors says. “In Paris,
you’ll see a woman on the
crummiest, rainy day in
a white coat. It immedi
ately gives her a movie
star spin.”
Kors’ spring collection
features layers of white
in soft silhouettes,
accented mostly by sim
ple beiges and blacks.
But whQe it’s hard to mix
blacks with different
Please see WHITE/2B
Which white? There are myriad choices
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Milk white is pretty much the
standard white, saj^ Leatrice
Eiseman, author of “More Ahve
With Color,” but ftiere are dozens of
other shades. Milk white likely
stands out because it’s a bright
white.
'The purer the color, the more the
human eye sees it like a brilliant
color. The attention-getting value of
a very bright white is enormous,”
she says. .
But pure, bright white isn’t always
the best choice.
For ©cample, says Eiseman, peo
ple think they want a pure white for
their kitchen, but the light reflection
is tremendous and the room can end
up appearing cold and sterile.
In fashion, bright white usually
looks best on very fair skin or very
dark skin, she says. "On dark skin,
it’s a great contrast, and on very fair
skin, off-white will look strange. But
you have to think of the texture of
the fabric. With sheer white or semi
sheer, the color of the skin becomes
Ihe imdertone of the white.”
Also be cai'eful where you wear the
white. It can be “enlarging” - which
mi^t be why it’s so popular in home
decoratir^ but it’s an optical illusion
you need to be prepared for if you’re
wearing head-to-toe white.
Off-whites, however, work more
like a neutral color.
“If you want to use white because
it ‘goes with everything,’ you might
want an off-white,” says Eiseman.
'Tou’re likely to be more comfort
able—and it’s more versatile.”
Since pure whites have blue
imdertones, they don’t necessarily
work with warmer colors, such as
peach, yellow or gold. A creamy
white tends to have a yellowish
undertone, and an off-white — yes,
there is a diffeironce—can have a
pink or peachy tone, or even have a
slight green or lavender cast, accord
ing to Eiseman
Bright white looks best playing off
black or navy because it adds crisp
ness, she adds, and bright white also
can pop against brown, tan and
blueish gray
White is enjoying a burst of popu
larity confirms Eiseman, also the
Please see MORE/2B
Professor brings hip hop to campus
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GREENSBORO-As the
students took their seats in
a UNCG classroom last
week, their professor
turned on the overhead pro
jection system.
The MrV2 logo appeared
on screen over^a number of
scantily clad female
dancers. It was the video for
“Run It!”—a hit sor^by 16-
year-old singer/rapper
Chris Brown in which he
promises to “show you
things/that’s gonna have
you sayin’ I can’t be 16.”
It’s a hit song, but the
groans firom the class were
audible. The students in
“Hip-Hop; Culture,
Economics and Politics”
take hip-hop seriously, and
this song was lightweight.
“This video disturbs me
greatly,” said Tracey
Salisbury Ihe lecturer who
created the class in UNCG’s
Afiican American Studies
program. “The video re
enacts a high school dance
in which the kids go to the
locker room and simulate
sex ... what’s the message?”
Salisbury’s lecture stjie is
free-form and aggressively
Socratic. She stalks the
floor in fiunt of the class,
posing the hard questions
. about the culture of hip-
hop—an art form that was
bom on the streets of New
York City was dismissed as
a fad and went on to con
quer the music charts and
invade pop culture.
Sahsbury loves hip-hop.
She talks about old-school
artists such as Run DMC
and Whodini with the deep,
abiding love an En^ish pro
fessor has for the classics,
but she also studies today’s
MTV with the careful eye of
a sociologist. Her verdict on
modem, mainstream hip-
hop?
‘Tt’s killing us,” she told
her class. ‘You’ve got
images and body shapes
that are not us. You’ve got
women being exploited,
materialism and the ^orifi-
cation of the ghetto and
poverty that is absolutely
ridiculous. And we go along
with it when they tell us
that’s hip-hop.”
The course is in its third
semester and, after a few
all-black classes, there are
finally some white faces in
the crowd. The course dis
sects the bruises on the hip-
hop apple: sexism, homo
phobia, violence and mate
rialism. But not even the
most hard-core fans in the
class dismiss Salisbury as a
detached and overly critical
academic. She has street
cred.
Salisbury grew up in Los
Angeles, the daughter of
schoolteachers. Her early
life was a strange tension
between her home in mid
dle-class Baldwin Hills and
afternoons with her grand
mother in South Central.
“We got to know the Crips
and the Bloods in that
neighborhood, and there
was a definite gang and
drug dealer presence,”
Salisbury said. “But I sort of
got a fiee pass because I
could play basketball and
my grandmother was the
neighborhood baby sitter.”
Salisbury’s West Coast
hip-hop roots are apparent.
Outside class she druses in
sports jerseys and sneak
ers, a silver tag on a long
chain hanging around her
neck. Though she’s soon to
be 40, her students often
think she’s in her late twen
ties. Sahsbury said that
suits her fine _ she’s used to
living between worlds.
Salisbury was one of the
students who benefited
fium the Califomia busing
program. She avoided her
neighborhood middle school
and later got into a special
program at Bev^-ly Hills
Ih^ School.
How to
treat risk for
esophogal
cancer
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - Chronic
heartbimi appears to be fiieling
the a fast-growing cancer,
esophageal cancer.
MUhons are thought to have a
type of esophagus damage fiom
severe add reflux that puts them
at increased risk for the deadly
cancer—and new research is
ejqiloring whether it’s possible to
zap away that damage and block
the cancer fi'om ever forming.
“The million-dollar question is
can we prevent cancer,” says Dr.
VK. Sharma of the Mayo Clinic,
who is leading one of the newest
studies, using radiofrequency
energy to bum away the dam
age. "That has not been
answered.”
But it’s a question taking on
new urgency as doctors chart a
six-fold increase in the last two
decades in the main type of
esophageal cancer.
Most cases won’t be diagnosed
rmtil patients feel such symp
toms as trouble swallowir^ and
loss of appetite. The prognosis is
grim: Just 16 percent of
esophageal cancer patients sur
vive five years, and 13,770 are
predicted to die this year.
Most have esophageal adeno
carcinoma, the type linked to
severe chronic heartburn.
With this “gastroesophageal
i-eflux disease,” or GERD, a loose
valve allows stomach add to reg
ularly back up into the delicate
esophagus. In a fraction of heart-
bum sufferer's, most over age 50,
severe GERD over many years
actually changes the lining of tire
esoph^us: When the stomach
add kills cells in that lining, the
esophagus eventually starts
healing itself with more acid-
resistant cells _ which happen to
be cancer-prone.
It’s a condition called Barrett’s
esophagus, and Barrett’s suffer
ers are thox^ht to be at least 30
times more fikely than the aver
age person to get esophageal can
cer.
Here’s the rub: Esophageal
cancer is slow-growing and does
n’t appear overnight. Just one in
200 Barrett’s patients develops
cancer every year, cautions Dr.
Stuart Spechler, a gastroenterol
ogist at the Dallas Veterans
Affairs Medical Center. Those
who go on to develop precancer-
ous spots called "high-grade dys
plasia” are at greater risk—one
in five will get full-blown cancer
in the n©rt five years.
Current guidelines call for doc
tors to watch for these step-by-
step changes by giving Barrett’s
patients regular down-the-throat
exams, so they can operate at the
first sign of cancer when survival
is around 80 percent, he says.
The debate is whether to just
monitor—or to try to get rid of
Barrett’s tissue.
Last year, the Food and Drug
Administration approved a
device that snakes a balloon
inside the esophagus and beams
RF energy through it to bum
away the Barrett’s tissue. Maker
Bai-rx Medical Inc. this month
began fundir^ a study of 120
patients at Mayo and 15 otiier
medical centers to see how well
RF ablation treats Barrett’s
patients with precancerous d3/s-
plasia.
Other options: Freezing away
Barrett’s tissue; photodynamic
therapy where a combination of
a light-sensitizing dn^ and a
laser bum it away, or endoscopi-