LOL…
Isn’t that a Deja Vu for us all 😛
[Comic: Working Daze]
Month: June 2004
Reality TV enters politics
The reality television craze is set to enter Australian politics, with the launch of a programme that encourages viewers to select candidates to run in national Senate elections.
Channel Seven on Wednesday said the programme Vote For Me would audition ordinary Australians who believed they could contribute to national affairs.
A panel of experts will select 18 candidates – three for each of Australia’s six states – before the audience is asked to use mobile phone text messages to whittle them down to one candidate per state.
The winners will receive $6800 campaign funding and receive daily airtime on Channel Seven’s Sunrise breakfast television news show.
Channel Seven said the contestants would be “serious” candidates tackling major issues.
[Source: Al Jazeera]
I can’t believe this…
I just predicted this exactly 10 days ago here. And my prediction is coming true already.
I actually think reality tv would be of more use in politics than it is in other crap by actually giving viewers a better insight into the people they vote for.
All politicians lie, but with more time in the limelight, the viewers can see if they’re good or bad liars 😛
Tabarka Jazz festival 2004
So, the Tabarka Jazz Festival is just around the corner, and everyone’s getting their plans ready to go to one concert or another.
The schedule this year is as follows:
02/07/2004 : Buena Vista Social Club
03/07/2004 : Billy Paul
04/07/2004 : Archie Shepp
06/07/2004 : Manu De Bango & Ray Lema
07/07/2004 : Mc Coy Tyner
08/07/2004 : Captain Mercier, Charlier Sourisse & Gnaoua
09/07/2004 : Romane
10/07/2004 : Liz Mc Comb
I’m not sure I’ll be going to any of the concerts, although I find the first two quite interesting and cool.
Palestinians Are Afghans?!
… given the way things are in the popular media, people are bound to think that way. What the Glasgow group has found is that a great majority of people think that the Palestinians are the occupiers of Israeli land, and some even think that they – the Palestinians – are refugees from Afghanistan…
Beyond Words
Suheir Hammad performing Beyond Words at the 21st National ADC Convention, 12 June 2004.
[Via Je Blog]
Palestinian-American poet and political activist Suheir Hammad has published a book of poems, Born Palestinian, Born Black, and a memoir,…
Recipient of the Audre Lourde Writing Award from Hunter College, the Morris Center for Healing Poetry Award, and a New York Mills Artist Residency in Minnesota, Suheir is a frequent reader at New York reading venues,…
SpaceShipOne, A Success
SpaceShipOne, the first private space craft was launched today and reached an altitude above 62.5 miles (100 km) during its brief flight, making it the first privately built craft to fly in space.
The space plane was carried aloft to about 50,000 feet by the jet White Knight.
From there SpaceShipOne launched into space.
Shortly after, the space vehicle landed safely at the same place from which it took off.
SpaceShipOne was financed by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen and designed by Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites.
Now, this is really cool…
Syria preparing sanctions against U.S.
Syria is preparing a law that would prohibit trade dealings with the United States in response to U.S. sanctions imposed on the Arab country last month, Syrian legislators said Saturday.
More than 130 members of the 250-seat legislature have prepared a draft of the “America Accountability Act” that would impose “strict sanctions” on American interests in Syria.
In a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Damascus, parliament officials said the draft law is a response to “Washington’s policy in the region and its unlimited support and bias for Israeli policies and practices and to the Syria Accountability Act.”
[More: CNN]
An eye for eye…
A sanction for a sanction…
Dark Victory
While no one was looking, something historic happened in the Middle East. The Palestinian intifada is over, and the Palestinians have lost … Israel is now defining a new equilibrium that will reign for years to come…
Charles Krauthammer
Israel’s Intifada Victory
June 18, 2004
Even if the Arabs lower their heads and swallow their shame and anger forever, it won’t work. A structure built on human callousness will inevitably collapse in on itself. Note this moment well: Zionism’s superstructure is already collapsing like a cheap Jerusalem wedding hall. Only madmen continue dancing on the top floor while the pillars below are collapsing.
Avraham Burg
A Failed Israeli Society Collapses While Its Leaders Remain Silent
August 29, 2003
Tahar Ben Jelloun wins Impac Literary Award
Moroccan author, Tahar Ben Jelloun, was named the winner yesterday of the $120,000 International Impac Dublin Literary Award, the world’s richest prize for a single work of fiction published in English.
Mr. Ben Jelloun won for his fact-based novel, “This Blinding Absence of Light”, about a soldier imprisoned in a desert concentration camp after taking part in an abortive coup against King Hassan II of Morocco in 1971.
The book was written in French, and Mr. Ben Jelloun will receive three-fourths of the prize money, with the rest going to Linda Coverdale, who translated the novel.
Mr. Ben Jelloun, born in Fez in 1944, has lived since 1961 in France, where he won the Prix Goncourt in 1987 for his novel “The Sacred Night.”
“Esther”, The artist formerly known as Madonna
Madonna has spent years building a reputation with her name, and now she’s changing it.
The pop diva has adopted the Hebrew name Esther. She says the move is in part due to her religious beliefs as she studies Jewish mysticism known as Kabbalah.
Even though this is not as mad as Prince dropping his name and choosing a symbol instead of it, it’s quite bad.
Of course, Madonna as a person has all the right to do whatever she wants to personally, and it’s none of anyone’s business. I just think it’s stupid from a career/marketing point of view.
Madonna is a household name now. Everyone knows Madonna. She’s up there with a very few people who are known in any household from the kids up to the grandparents.
Madonna is a brand whether you like it or not. Any music with the brand Madonna on it is automatically a hit.
Madonna is a legend.
Dropping such a well known name and changing it to something else is a bad move career-wise, I think.
Of course, being a big music fan, I’ll know Madonna is Esther, and I know she’ll always keep pouring out that great music of hers, and that’s what counts to me. I don’t care what she calls herself in the end of the day.
But not everyone is like me, not everyone knows what is going on in the music world. All they know is they like Madonna and her music. Esther? Who’s that? Oh yeah, she sounds a bit like Madonna. Talking of that, Where’s Madonna? She’s the best!