“"We will seek out the Americans and if we capture them we will slaughter them."”
Hey, pirates, didn't you get the memo? Everybody loves America now. Way to be behind the curve.
Last Sunday, U.S. Navy Seals killed the three pirates holding Captain Richard Phillips hostage aboard a lifeboat. Today, the pirates vowed revenge. According to an Associated Press article, a 25-year-old Somali pirate spokesman named Ismail said, “We will seek out the Americans and if we capture them we will slaughter them.”
There are two strange things about this story. The first is that the pirates are swearing revenge on the U.S. True, we did kill three of their own recently, but it seems hard to ignore the fact that for a bunch of guys in flip flops with Soviet weapons, declaring war on the U.S. Navy might not be such a good idea. Maybe it was the khat talking. The other thing is, since when do pirates have spokespeople? Talk about a PR nightmare.
The response? The French Navy detained 11 today, captured from a pirate "mother ship," Time reports that hijackings will soon be curtailed by a sniper rifle that can pick off brigands from a mile away, and Spike is planning a Deadliest Catch-type reality series about the U.S. Navy patrols in Pirate's Alley.
In other news, the other Pirates are up 4-3, playing the Houston Astros tonight in Pittsburgh.
When your video camera fits neatly in your pocket, a vacation in the desert sheikhdom of Dubai quickly turns into an excuse to blog. Check out the first video from my trip.
“Who wouldn't be happy to shut down their billion-dollar a year industry if it meant the city streets would be safe for all?”
In Luzerne County the prison industry is thriving.
In recent weeks, two Pennsylvania judges, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Judge Michael T. Conahan, have been charged with wire fraud and tax evasion, in what is being called the biggest courtroom scandal in Pennsylvania's history. Under the judges' reign, thousands of juveniles, many of them accused of minor and nonviolent crimes, were sent to private detention facilities in exchange for millions in kickbacks.
Call me nutty, but the most egregious part of this story is not that two judges appear to have swindled thousands of children out of their constitutional rights, not that they were paid to do so by friends in the prison industry, but that there is a prison industry in America at all. And that it's thriving.
But why shouldn't it? If ever there was such thing as a recession-proof industry, that's got to be it.
Once we get past the irony of judges being sent to prisons full of prisoners they helped send down the road themselves (one hopes their views of the judicial system will be altered somewhat when they are released), we must come to grips with the fact that for-profit prisons are by their very nature a bad idea. Sure, in theory, they seem to work. But you know what else works in theory? Communism.
As far as I can tell, the reasoning goes that private companies motivated by profits will do a better job than the government could because they have more to lose. And should crime rates ever fall, and America rise to meet the promise of its dreams, well, I'm sure the CEO's of those companies will tell you they'd be more than happy to shut their doors and move on to some other line of work. I mean who wouldn't be happy to shut down their billion-dollar a year industry if it meant the city streets would be safe for all?
To be fair, as long as there are laws, there will be those who break them and need to be rehabilitated separate from the general population. But something is wrong when America accounts for a full 25% of the world's prisoners.
Now, this is not all the prison companies' doing, of course. The war on drugs, institutionalized poverty and failed school systems account for much of this. But when there is money to be made from locking people up, it stands to reason that the people who profit from it will do all within their power to maximize their profits, even, in the rare case, if it means breaking the law to do so.
Another point, made by Thomas Frank in a scathing satirical essay in The Wall Street Journal, is that this is the logical end of decades of Americans demanding our legal system to be tougher on crime, be it drugs, violence or shoplifting a jar of nutmeg. As he puts it, the accused Pennsylvania judges “have merely taken to heart the unvarying message of 40 years' worth of election results—that more people, many more, need to go to jail—and have come up with an entrepreneurial solution to the problem.”
Along with Ciavarella, Conahan and those who paid them so handsomely for sending kids to jail, we are at fault here, too. Until America comes to its senses and demands not tougher laws and judges, but an end to the judicial system that sees not only one out of every 31 adults behind bars, but also one out of every nine African American males aged 25-34. The solution is not a simple one, certainly, but the need for change has never been more apparent, and with so much talk of change these days, what better time to start than now?
In one of the most bizarre instances of on-air interviewing I've ever seen, Billy Bob Thornton appeared on the CBC radio (Canada's NPR) programQ on Wednesday to promote his band, the Boxmasters, currently on tour with Willie Nelson.
The video below must really be seen to be fully appreciated, but in it, Thornton proceeds to make a complete ass of himself. Apparently, the Oscar-winning actor/director/screenwriter took offense to host Jian Ghomeshi's passing reference to his film career and subsequently refused to answer any questions. For example, when Ghomeshi asked about how long the band had been together, Thornton replied, “I have no idea what you're talking about.”
Probably, the Slingblade star's most detailed answer was a lengthy non-sequitur, apropos of nothing, about a movie monster magazine he subscribed to as a child and a model-building contest he once entered. Other highlights include his confrontational, “Would you ask Tom Petty that?” and his offhanded insult about Canadian audiences, “They just kind of sit there… It's mashed potatoes with no gravy.”
It's hard to imagine what Billy Bob must have been thinking, but judging by the embarrassed looks on the faces of his band, he was the only one thinking it.
I left behind the downtown area of cosmopolitan Dubai for an evening at a makeshift Bedouin camp. Here are some photos from my evening. Also check out my slide shows from Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah.
Guess they didn't learn from the backlash over the Bidens' pet pick.
Animal rescue organizations are up in arms.
In a statement on Friday, the Executive Director of Adopt-a-Pet.com called the Obama's decision a “missed opportunity." "If Obama had adopted a pet from a shelter, it could have been the turning point for the pet-overpopulation problem in this country," the Executive Director said in her statement.
Twitter has officially arrived. It's been around for ages, of course (going on three years now, a veritable eon in Internet time), but now that Oprah's doing it, we can pretty much safely say that everybody else is, too. And if they're not, they will be soon.
Winfrey's Twitter feed appeared Friday and attracted more than 100,000 followers within hours. But that's far from the biggest news on Twitter these days. Ashton Kutcher (of trucker cap-wearing, Demi Moore-marrying, prank-playing fame) recently surpassed a million followers, one-upping CNN as the site's most popular feed.
This, of course, raises all kinds of questions about what kind of a place Twitter is, who uses it, and what for. It also makes CNN look pretty silly, but not for the first time.
If you're like me, you may not still be confused about exactly what Twitter is, but you're probably still a little unclear as to why anyone needs it. Like Buddhism and the musical career of Bruce Willis, the more you understand, the more confusing it gets.
If we can get past, for a moment, the question of why we should be motivated to share with friends and strangers alike the minutiae of our lives every few hours, we ought to focus on the more important question of why the heck would anyone care? I mean, I don't care about half the stuff I do in a given day, so why should anyone else?
You go ahead and contemplate this, and get back to me when you figure it out. In the meantime, I've got some serious tweeting to do.
Here are some articles to read, ideas to ponder, ways to observe the day and a documentary to watch (or not watch, depending on who's reviewing it), all in the name of the Earth.
2) There are many ways to observe Earth Day at home or at work, including carpooling, starting a compost pile in your backyard and taking lessons from “green boomers.”
4) After you complete your Earth Day contributions, round up the family and check out the new Disney documentary Earth, which opens today. Film reviews are mixed (see here and here).
5) Be sure to break out your camera, snap some photos and join an Earth Day photo contest, including one that will plot photos from around the globe on a map.
6) And finally, tell us how you participated in Earth Day.
“The answer may surprise you. And don't forget to read the small print.”
Was your throat a little itchy this morning? Did your office feel warmer than usual? If all the braying and tearing of hair going on at CNN is any indication, you might have the dreaded swine flu.
The LAGI artists explained how, if it works, each land art sculpture would have the potential to power up to 50,000 UAE homes. Check out the video from my conversation with them.
So long, Bea Arthur, you will be missed, but your legacy will live as long as there are sitcoms and people who love them.
Arthur, who passed over the weekend, was many things: a Tony-winning theatre actress, an animal rights activist, an Emmy-winning TV star; but the role she will most be remembered for was the role of Dorothy on The Golden Girls. For those of us Young Voices who spent a large part of our childhood hours basking in the warming glow of the TV, The Golden Girls were as much a part of our lives as any family members. The antics of Blanche, Sophia, Rose, and Dorothy, sassy broads every one, provided many happy hours of entertainment.
Looking back on it now, it seems more than unlikely that a prime time show could exist about four single retired women living together in a pastel-colored condo. And yet it happened, and the world is a richer place because of it. It was funny, it was real and it dealt with issues. I don't think I'll be alone in saying that they just don't make shows like that any more, and it's a darn shame.
I stopped by the Dubai Community Theatre and Arts Centre to see paintings, sketches, photography and sculptures that were part of an exhibit called "That Fleeting Moment."
The curator and artists talked to me about the exhibit's theme, what they hoped to convey through their art, and they discussed the growing Dubai art scene.
Harsh Reality for Dubai Workers by Tamika Thompson
I was riding down a freeway in Dubai when I saw a vehicle that didn't blend into the background of shiny new cars on the road. Amid the Lexus, Mercedes and BMW vehicles that were carrying their drivers to work, was a rickety bus packed with men in blue construction suits.
It's a harsh reality in Dubai. The desert sheikhdom is made up of a population that is 20% Emirati and 80% foreigners, most of whom are expatriates from South Asia.
People come to Dubai to work. But the gleaming city of skyscrapers, man-made islands and swank hotels has arguably been built on the backs of a foreign underclass of workers, many of whom are living and working in some pretty severe conditions.
Recent reports from The Independent and BBC Panorama did not hesitate to go beyond the UAE public relations machine and report on the lives of the Dubai underclass.
So I would be remiss if I went on a trip to Dubai without also exploring the peculiar thing that I saw on the freeway.
I talked to an award-winning UAE-based charity called Helping Hands UAE, which offers support to homeless and abandoned expat workers, as well as blue-collar and white-collar workers. The latter group has been in need of help ever since the global economic crisis.
The co-founder of the 2½ year-old charity told me that the working conditions for their most consistent clients - the male blue-collar workers who live in labor camps - consist of 14-hour workdays, low pay, high debt and few breaks between Noon and 3 p.m., the hottest part of the day.
“Conditions vary from company to company, and there is as yet no minimum wage,” says Helping Hands UAE co-founder Elle Trow. “The reason that the men worked 7 days a week was that they had huge loans to pay off because they had to pay agents in their home countries to get jobs here.”
Trow says that the workers typically entered into the loans “on the promise of high paid wages per month, which never materialized.”
The companies bus the men to and from work every day from the camps where they live. So Helping Hands visits the men at the camps and provides them with food and medical consultation from a team of doctors.
The group has had some success in a short time too. Some companies have made changes to their pay and work conditions after Helping Hands UAE visited and spoke to them about their policies. The group emphasizes that it looks to raise awareness in a “gentle but positive way.”
The charity says that it “urgently needs dedicated warehousing for the day-to-day sorting, checking and preparing the donations and making them ready for distribution.”
Trow says that her organization has been invited to open branches in Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait, adding that the problems are not unique to Dubai, but are found throughout the Gulf region.
At the risk of taking an unpopular position, I'll just go ahead and say it: The Obama administration rocks.
Case in point: The selection of Kal Penn to be the White House Office of Public Liaison's associate director. Penn, who is best known as the star of the stoner comedies Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle and Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, will act as an intermediary between the public and the president's office. Penn also appears on the program this Wednesday.
If you haven't seen Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, I highly recommend you do. Sure the comedy's a bit juvenile, and the plot takes some downright bizarre turns, but if you like that sort of thing, you'll find it to be one of the funniest movies of the new millennium. Even if boob and bong jokes aren't your thing, however, Harold & Kumar is worth watching for another reason. It is the first mainstream movie, that I can recall, in which neither of the main characters was white, and this was of absolutely no relevance to the plot.
Rather than being a film about a Korean guy and a South Asian guy trying to get some fast food, it's a movie about two stoned college kids (who happen to be of Korean and South Asian descent, first generation Americans both) embarking on a series of crazy adventures in search of mini hamburgers. Even though it came out in 2004, it is a film for post-racial, Obama-era America, maybe the first one ever.
Penn's role in government is symbolic of this, and symbolic of the new-day tactics of Obama's White House. Not only is he a Washington outsider and a man of color, but he starred in a comedy about the Bush-era war on terror, that was one of the sharpest satires since Team America: World Police. He also played a recurring role on House, and who doesn't like House?
Of course, just because Penn is a funny actor in a clever film doesn't automatically mean he's a great candidate to oversee operations at the White House. But I think he probably will be. Check it out on Wednesday, and we'll see what's what.
Sharjah was the third emirate that I visited while in the UAE, and it was my favorite. Here are photos from my visit. Also check out my slide shows from Abu Dhabi and my visit to the Dubai Women's College.
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